The Magazine of Albemarle County History

Home , James Barbour (lawyer)

THE MAGAZINE OF ALBEMARLE COUNTY HISTORY

Albemarle County Courthouse

VOLUME FORTY - NINE

1991

ALBEMARLE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY

220 COURT SQUARE

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VIRGINIA 22901-5171 "To Build a Wall Around These Mountains": The Displaced People of Shenandoah1

By Charles L. Perdue, Jr., and Nancy J. Martin-Perdue

During his ventures through the Southern Highlands searching for English folksongs in oral tradition in America in 1916, Cecil Sharp, then director of the Stratford-on-Avon School of Folk Lore and Folk Dancing in England, spent some time in Albemarle County. Here Sharp collected ballads from a number of individuals, including Nuel Walton of Brown's Cove, and Orilla Keeton and Victoria (Shifflett) Morris at Mt. Fair, and he published some of their texts and music in his English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians. Later, beginning in 1932, members of the Virginia Folklore Society would record on aluminum discs the singing of Morris and Keeton and preserve in manuscript form the songs and ballads of Smith Morris of Greene County, Daisy Nicholson and J. M. Jenkins of Madison County, and Z. T. Compton of Warren County, among others whose names would also eventually appear on the lists of those whose lands were condemned for the development of Shenandoah National Park.2

1The material in this article is part of a book-length manuscript, which bears the same title and is in preparation. We thank the Albemarle County Victoria Morris (left) and Orilla Keeton. Historical Society for their permission to use this article in that larger work. Courtesy of the Archive of the Virginia Folklore Society, 2 When this paper was presented at the Broadus Wood Elementary School Special Collections Department, University of Virginia in Earlysville, we played a tape of the Virginia Folklore Society's recording Library. of Victoria Morris singing 'The Soldier Boy," a ballad drawn from the British broadside tradition and more commonly known as 'The Butcher Boy" (Laws P24). A tape of that ballad and all the other recorded examples we used in that lecture is being deposited in the archives of the Albemarle County Historical Society so that interested persons might listen to it there. These materials, as well as other recordings made under the auspices of the Virginia Folklore Society, are also available in the Kevin Barry Perdue Archive of Traditional Culture, 8001, Brooks Hall, University of Virginia. 50 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH 51

But in 1917 the results of his trip would prompt Cecil The idea of a national park in the Eastern United States Sharp to comment: '1' d like to build a wall around these had been around since before the tum of the century. By the mountains, and let the mountain people alone. The only early 1920s, Federal officials were considering sites in North distinctive culture in America is here."3 He was concerned that Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia, and this set off an intense the "general progress of civilization" and the "intrusion of interstate rivalry to gain the economic advantages such a park industrialization" would negatively affect "the conditions might bring. Given the belief that Virginia "had lagged behind prevailing at that time, which were so favourable to the its potential ever since the Civil War," Governor E. Lee Trinkle preservation of traditional culture." Sharp's idyllic longing "to apparently saw the acquisition of a national park as an build a wall around these mountains," whether for the purpose opportunity to restore the state "to its early eminence and of keeping the mountain people in and unchanged or for glory. The park challenge. . . [became] . . . to him an affair of keeping industry and the modem world out, was in vain. honor, of reawakening the great Virginia spirit."6 Where he wished for a wall, others had long speculated that A single legislative act would eventually establish two the mountains themselves enclosed those in their midst in a national parks in the east: the Great Smokies and the Shenan devolutionary backwater and formed a natural barrier--a kind doah National Park. And George Freeman Pollock, the owner of wall, which resisted penetration by progress and develop and operator of Skyland, the Blue Ridge resort and nucleus ment.4 around which the idea of the Park was developed, was credited Where Sharp could only wish to build a protective wall, for much of that effort. others would build walls of words defining the boundaries of In March of 1926 when the State Commission on those mountains, of Appalachia, its people and culture. Still Conservation and Development was established to begin others would succeed in building a bureaucratic wall on paper, acquiring land for the park, its Chairman William E. Carson enclosing some of those same mountainous areas referred to by wrote that the private efforts of Pollock and others were: Sharp by creating the Shenandoah National Park as a preserve "for the recreation of the people who lived in the thickly As ably done a piece of salesmanship as the state populated metropolitan centers of the East." Over the course of will see again. For not only was the park idea sold, that development between 1924-1936 more than 500 families but pledges from the people were taken in amounts would be dispossessed from their land and homes in the Blue running from six to twenty thousand dollars, . . . Ridge Mountains and their way of life, distinctive or not, [however] . . . when we [the State Commission] would be disrupted.5 analyzed the campaign, we found that little or no information was at hand as to the extent of the area, as to the value of the land within the area, as to whether the people wanted to sell their lands, nor

3 was there any definite assurance that the United Cecil Sharp made this comment to J. Russell Smith in Knoxville, States Government would accept it ...". 7 Tennessee. Smith reported it in a footnote in his book, North America (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1925), p. 220.

4Maud Karpeles in the preface to Sharp's English Folk Songs, pp. xv-xvi. For presentations of the "devolutionary backwater" view, see George E. Vincent, "A Retarded Frontier," The American Journal of Sociology (1898) 4: pp. 1-20; and Mandel Sherman and Thomas R. Henry, Hollow Folk (Berryville, 6Darwin Lambert, The Undying Past of Shenandoah National Park (Boulder, Virginia: Virginia Book Company, 1933 [Facsimile reprint, 1973)) especially Colorado: Roberts Rinehart, Inc. Publishers, 1989), p. 200. pp. 1-10. 7From a report by William E. Carson, cited in Darwin Lambert's 5see Charles L. Perdue, Jr. and Nancy J. Martin-Perdue, "Appalachian "~henandoah National Park Administrative History, 1924-1976," an unpub Fables and Facts: A Case Study of the Shenandoah National Park Removals," lished report sponsored by the NPS Mid-Atlantic Region and Shenandoah Appalachian Journal (Autumn-Winter 1979-80), 7, No. 1-2, pp. 84-104. Natural History Association, 1979, pp. 47-48. 52 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 53

Despite Carson's concerns, Congress passed a bill in May 1926 was confusion and inconsistency regarding removal; at worst, authorizing a 521,000-acre Shenandoah National Park, and there was outright deception.9 surveys to determine land value and ownership were begun in On 3 July 1936-barely two decades after Cecil Sharp's November 1926. But the project proved to be unexpectedly travels and commentary-several thousand people would costly, and Virginia was twice forced to scale it down, each gather at Big Meadows to hear President Franklin Delano time requiring another act of Congress. The final action set the Roosevelt dedicate the more than 180,000-acre Shenandoah federal limits and authorized a park containing at minimum National Park, which lay along the Blue Ridge and extended a 160,000 acres. length of approximately seventy miles through eight Virginia Establishment of the Park set a precedent by using a counties: Albemarle, Augusta, Rockingham, Greene, Madison, specially-devised blanket condemnation act to acquire pri Rappahannock, Page, and Warren. vately-held land from persons, many of whom did not want to Neither the people nor the land and tax bases of these give up their land or to move from the area. William Carson's eight political jurisdictions were equally affected by the park brother, Judge A. C. Carson, developed the special act based on development, however. Although Albemarle County was about his experiences as former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in equal to Greene County in the total number of acres of land it the Philippine Islands. There, under colonial conditions had evaluated for condemnation, that is, 14,300.5 acres for following the Spanish-American War, such a blanket condem Albemarle compared to 14,566.5 acres for Greene, there is a nation act had been used to acquire lands owned by the considerable difference in the total number of separate tracts Catholic Church. Judge Carson's version of that act in Virginia, and of individual land owners affected in the two counties. In which was passed by the General Assembly in March 1928, all, forty-one tracts in Albemarle were evaluated at an average allowed the state to acquire all the land tracts required in each of $7.62/ acre, while in Greene there were 125 distinct tracts county with a single condemnation suit under eminent domain; evaluated at an average of $13.96/acre. By way of further that act was never used again after its application in the Park contrast, the thirty-nine tracts totalling 11,315 acres in Augusta case but was subsequently repealed. 8 County averaged only $1.68 per acre in value.10 In the midst of the Depression, the fair market value of More significant, however, is the fact that each of the the existing homes of many small landholders was insufficient counties of Madison, Page, Rappahannock, and Rockingham to provide homes elsewhere, and the building of resettlement suffered the loss of more than 30,000 acres from their respective homesteads had encountered political difficulties and was land bases. The value of these lands as appraised varied running far behind schedule. Worse still, land condemnation between an average of $8 to almost $11 an acre. With 194, 192, and acquisition began in 1930, but it was not until 1 February and 211 separate tracts, respectively, it is obvious too that 1934 that Amo Cammerer, then director of the Park Service, Madison, Page, and Rappahannock Counties had proportion made the final decision that all families (except those on his ately more inhabitants adversely affected by the Park acquisi secret lifetime tenure list) would have to be removed before the tions in their areas. Thus the impact of the Park upon the eight federal government would accept the lands for the Park. For separate counties was not uniformly or equally felt. the ten years prior to Cammerer's decision, various conflicting statements regarding removal had been made. At best, there 9Perdue and Martin-Perdue, Appalachian Fables, p. 90.

1°For the purpose of this paper, the total number of tracts and amount of acreage, as well as, the average value per acre of land in each individual county (cited in this and the following paragraph) are based on the listings of "Park-Land Owners with Acres Condemned." given in Lambert, Undying 8Shenandoah National Park Travelogue, published. with the approval of Dr. Past, Appendix 3. Although his listing is somewhat problematic, it can be H.J. Eckenrode, Director, Division of History and Archaeology, Virginia State safely used to show the proportionately different effects of land condemna Commission on Conservation and Development, ca. 1937, pp. 14-15. tion upon the various counties and their populations. 54 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 55

The cultural concerns and values that underlay develop halt human consumption of some resources. It ment of the Park over time were rooted in the progressive suggests that earth need not ultimately become a movement, in industrialization and modernization, and in a wasteland, ... [emphasis added].12 growing nationalism. And it was no mere coincidence that President Roosevelt called upon images of "productivity" with For almost eighteen years, we have tried to fathom the allusions to wastefulness and idleness in his Park dedication significance and persistence of this kind of rhetoric, which speech. continues to rationalize the Park's establishment and to After epochal changes including world war and characterize the people it displaced.13 If one is particularly depression, the pressing need of the 1930s was for relief, for concerned (as we are) with the effects of the Park and of preservation of the body and spirit of the people, and indeed, dislocation upon people and their culture, then this language for the very idea and fabric of nationhood. Where cultural is_ an obvio~ part of the pro~~em. There has also been a long patterns did not fit with the ideals of progress or foster the hIS~ory of d~course ~h~ractenzmg persons without visible legal national goals of recovery and modernization, those patterns claun or with conflicting claims to ownership of land in this were seen to be not merely backward or primitive but, in effect, area ~s being squatters, which makes land tenure a very immoral and unpatriotic. Thus, Roosevelt stated that: complicated and thorny issue in this case. In addition, condem nation lists of legal owners (many of whom were absentee and It was neither the will nor the destiny of our Nation ~on-resident in the area) do not include persons with legitimate that this waste of human and natural resources nghts as lessees or renters and are, thus, incomplete sources for should continue. That was the compelling reason that information about occupancy upon the land and its multiple led us to put our idle people to the task of ending meanings. Indeed, lessees and renters were also forced to move the waste of our land.11 from the Park area, but they had no legal claim to any recom-

The idle people referred to here were the men of the Civilian Conservation Corps, who cleared hiking trails, planted trees, built rock walls, scenic overlooks and lodges for campers, and also razed the homes of the mountain families they moved, sometimes forcibly, from the Park area. But the President applied the image of idleness to the people being removed as 12 well, and dismissed their history of subsistence farming and Darwin Lambert, Undying Past, pp. xiv-xv. If taken literally (using 1930 as the d~te w~en c_onde~nations for removal of the mountain people began), husbandry as abuse of the land and as wastefulness. then this wnter is stating that whites had been heavily exploiting this Sentiments reminiscent of those expressed by Roosevelt territory since 1630! in 1936 continue to be echoed to the present day. As recently 1 as last year, one writer wrote that: • ~0 that end, we have conducted archival, courthouse, library, and oral histoncal re~rch on about 250 Park families, focusing on 12 family

surnames [Atkins; Bolen; Bowen; Clark; Corbin· Dodson·1 Dwyer· Frazier· Removal of the mountain people, to return the land Jenkins; Nicholson; Pullen; and Sisk] located prir'narily in Madiso~, Rappa~ to nature's ways after more than three hundred years hannock, an~ Page_ Counties. We have followed these people from their of heavy exploitation by white people, was an episode antecedents in the eighteenth century (in most cases), up to and through the rare in history. Rare, too, is the half-century regener Par~ _re~ovals in the mid 1930s, and the subsequent resettlement of some ation of wilderness .... The episode has worldwide families in Farm Security Administration homesteads. One major goal of our significance. It shows that civilization can lastingly work ~s explicitly descriptive: to produce an accurate and comprehensive narrative account of the history and culture of a sub-group of Appalachian peo~le, and to show how the dominant mainstream of society documented, impinged upon, and dramatically changed the lives and history of those 11Cited in Travelogue, ca. 1937, p. 19. people. 56 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH 57 pense for their losses and we have no reliable way of finding Rappahannock (Rapidan) River, and a line extending from its out how many persons were affected in that manner.14 headspring on the eastern slope of the Blue Ridge to the We will emphasize in this article some of the major headspring of the Potomac in the Allegheny Mountains. The historical factors--focussing especially on land acquisition and grant included nineteen present-day Virginia counties and settlement and on subsequent developments of mineral and seven counties now in West Virginia. The Northern Neck timber resources-which have contributed to the rhetoric and to Proprietary thus encompassed most of the area that would later the conflicting views of the people of Shenandoah and their become the northern half of the Shenandoah National Park history. where our work has been concentrated.16 We may begin the story of land acquisition in what is Prior to settlement of the major dispute over the now Shenandoah National Park with the public beheading of Northern Neck boundary, both the Proprietary and the Royal King Charles I of England on 30 January 1649. Charles's son, Government made grants on the contested land between the Charles II was in exile. He assumed the royal title and was Rapidan and Rappahannock Rivers. After each such Royal proclaimed King in Scotland and some parts of Ireland. On 18 grant, Robert Carter in his capacity as agent for the Proprietary September 1649 Charles II granted a large portion of Virginia registered a complaint. But he also acquired several Royal to seven of his impoverished followers. The grant, generally grants for himself and in each of those cases he likewise known as the "Northern Neck Proprietary," was without force dutifully submitted a complaint on behalf of the Proprietary. until Charles was restored to the throne in May of 1660 and on By 1738, a settlement was finally reached whereby Lord Fairfax 3 August 1663 he renewed the grant and the "patentees took agreed to issue patents for lands in the disputed area granted steps to establish possession."15 by the Crown, and the Governor was ordered to cease issuing We need not concern ourselves with all of the details of grants within the Proprietary.17 the subsequent title changes but the end result was that in 1719 In 1747, Lord Fairfax moved to Virginia permanently. Thomas 6th Lord Fairfax held 5/6 interest in the Northern He had several "manors" totaling about 220,000 acres surveyed Neck Proprietary as tenant entail and 1/6 interest in fee. There for himself, and he set up housekeeping and a land office at were a number of disputes over the legitimacy of the Northern Greenway Court in Frederick County-a few miles southeast of Neck Proprietary and over its boundaries, but when the issues Winchester. Following Fairfax's death in 1781, the land office and disputes were resolved Lord Fairfax controlled 5,282,000 was closed and by his will the Proprietary "descended upon acres located between the Potomac River on the North and alien enemies." By 1782 the Virginia General Assembly "seques West; the Chesapeake Bay on the East; and on the South, the tered all past due Northern Neck quit rents, and directed that future quit rents be paid into the public treasury. After confirmation of the treaty of peace, the Commonwealth of Virginia assumed in 1784 control of all ungranted land in the 14From oral interviews we know that many people in the Beech Spring Hollow on the Sperryville Turnpike in Rappahannock County were renting their houses from Addison Clark, who "owned almost everything around," much of it inherited from his father, Jonas Oark, born ca. 1818. Addie Clark charged $.10 per day rent for a house and sufficient land around it for gardens and crops. Some of the Clark land was also inherited by Nina H. (Dodson) Clark, who is listed on the tract condemnations, but information on the Oark renters is scarce to nonexistent. 16 15 Fauquier During the Proprietorship, pp. 44-56. Acreage as given in Virginia H. C. Groome, Fauquier During the Proprietorship: A Chronicle of the Land Office Inventory, compiled by Daphne S. Gentry, revised and enlarged Colonization and Organization of a Northern Neck County (Richmond: Old by John S. Salmon, Archives and Records Division, Virginia State Library, Dominion Press, 1927), pp. 33-34. See also Turlough Faolain, Blood on the Richmond, 1981, p.xvii. Harp: Irish Rebel History in Ballad (froy, N.Y.: Whitson Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 143-144. 11Fauquier During the Proprietorship, pp. 63-64. 58 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH 59

Proprietary and Fairfax's heirs acquired all of the 220,000 acres cited, that there were numerous squatters in the Blue Ridge in 18 in the Manors. the late 1730s and 40s. There may have been others, like In September of 1728, John Malden (sometimes indicat Cowherd, who were renters and for whom there remains no ed as Maiden) was granted 1,000 acres of Proprietary land near evidence of that status. But there is little to support the Old Rag Mountain. The metes and bounds and named comers contention that there were either numerous squatters or renters 21 on Malden's patent indicate that most of this land lay within in the Blue Ridge in that early period. · the present-day Shenandoah Park boundary. In the same year, The opening of Virginia's Land Office in 1779, followed Linn Stanton and Thomas Stanton, Jr. obtained 1,000 acres from in succession by the end of the War and the transfer of most of the Crown "near the mountains" on the North Fork of the Lord Fairfax's Proprietary to the Commonwealth, coincided Rapidan River and some of this land also seems to have been with or precipitated an increase in both land speculation and in the Park.19 settlement. By the 1780s deeds in the area give more indication In the late 1740s several grants for land within the Park of residence, both in terms of renters and of persons living on were made by the Proprietary. One grant, to Robert Rae, their own land obtained either by grant or purchase. For merchant of Falmouth, Virginia, and Francis Kirtley of Cul instance, the following deed was filed in the Culpeper County peper County, referred to Rae and Kirtley' s "meadow tract" on courthouse in September 1779: the top of the Blue Ridge and seems to have been what is now called "Big Meadows." In 1755 Archibald Dick of Stafford John Garr and wife Margaret and Andrew Garr and County patented 400 acres on the west side of Old Rag wife Christenas to William Corbin of Culpeper Co., Mountain, all within the Park. Although speculators continued for 500 pounds [money] and 4,000 pounds of taking up acreage in the mountains of Madison and Rappahan tobacco-all that tract or parcel of land whereon nock Counties, most of the Blue Ridge lands remained un William Corbin, Peter Corbin, and John Jenkins now claimed up into the 1790s; some tracts of land still remained live, containing by estimation 200 acres. Said land granted to James Maxwell by Lord Fairfax on June vacant in 1930 when they were condemned for Shenandoah 22 National Park.20 11, 1749. Few, if any, of the speculators lived on the lands they were granted, and there is scant evidence, indeed, for settle This land lay along the Hughes River at the foot of Old Rag ment in the Park area before the 1780s: only a suggestive place Mountain just outside the Park. Twenty-five years later William name here or occasional reference there. For example, Francis Corbin's grandchildren were living within what is now the Kirtley in his will probated 17 March 1763 attested that Shenandoah National Park boundary. Jonathan Cowherd rented a plantation from him in Swift Run On 22 September 1783 Robert Coleman (who lived near Gap. Statements have frequently been made, with no sources the present site of the Culpeper County courthouse) purchased Land Office Treasury Warrants for a total of 165,000 acres in seven Virginia counties (some in present-day West Virginia). Coleman then assigned one of these warrants-for 5,000 acres 18 Ibid., pp. 70-77; Stuart E. Brown, Jr., Virginia Baron: The Story of Thomas located primarily in Madison County-to Col. James Barbour. 6th Lord Fairfax (Berryville, Virginia: Chesapeake Book Company, 1965), p. 198. And in 1794-1797, Barbour re-assigned smaller tracts of this land to individuals who had surveys made and obtained 19Patent Book 13, pp. 343 & 367, 28 September 1728, Virginia State Library, patents. An old Madison County survey book shows at least Richmond; Tom Floyd, Lost Trails and Forgotten People: The Story of Jones Mountain (Washington D.C.: Potomac Appalachian Trail Qub, 1981), p. 21, no source cited. 21 Culpeper County Will Book A, pp. 313-315; Floyd, Lost Trails, p. 22. 2llNorthem Neck Grant Books, particularly Book G, p. 341, 8 January 1749; see also, Book H, p. 636, 9 April 1755. 22Culpeper County Deed Book K, pp. 149-151, 23 September 1779. 60 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH 61

2,961 acres re-assigned to sixteen different individuals in The five surveys in the Park area totaled 138,725 acres which parcels ranging from eighteen acres to 400 acres. Several included 111 prior claims (i.e., patents) on 36,260 acres, leaving surnames of families later removed from the Park were among 102,465 acres of the Shenandoah National Park area of the Blue the assignees listed in that survey book.23 Ridge waste-or unclaimed-up to the time of Barbour's survey In a separate purchase on 7 February 1795, Col. James in 1795. The more significant fact, however, is that after 1795 Barbour obtained four Land Office Treasury Warrants for over one hundred thousand acres (the major portion of the 25,000 acres each at a fee of $500 per warrant, or a total of land that would become Shenandoah Park) was held by land 100,000 acres, for $2,000. The land was surveyed in six separate speculators and was not available to general settlement. Within parcels, five of which were in the area of the Shenandoah a year Barbour assigned all these tracts to Walter Roe [Row], a National Park. merchant in Baltimore. And Roe, in tum, re-assigned most, if not all, of the land to Robert Oliver, another Baltimore mer chant and land speculator.25 1. 9,000 acres in Culpeper (now Rappahannock) County, 15 June 1795; Let's take a closer look at Tract No. 6 (commonly called no prior claims on this land; the "Big Survey"), located in Rappahannock, Madison, and Page 2. 19,950 acres in Orange (now Greene) County, 15 April 1795; Counties. As it happened, Robert Oliver neglected to pay taxes excludes 51 prior claims of a total of 15,895 acres; on the Big Survey and in August 1815 the Sheriff of Madison County held a public sale and knocked down the Big Survey 3. 5,012 acres in Shenandoah (now Page) County, 16 June 1795; no to Thomas and Zachariah Shirley for taxes and costs: $786.37 prior claims; and 7 mills, or less than two cents an acre, for the 42,700 acre tract. In 1815 smaller tracts of land similar in quality to much 4. 24,892 acres (7,530 acres of this parcel was added by virtue of LOTW No. 1, issued 7 February 1794 to Col. James Barbour) in of the Big Survey lands were selling for $2.50 to $5.00 an acre. Shenandoah (now Warren and Page) County, 22 June 1795; 9 prior Today the Big Survey would be worth approximately 43 claims of 3,012 acres; million dollars.26 Thomas and Zachariah Shirley were brothers; they were 5. 5,923 acres in Rockingham County, 15 June 1795; 18 prior claims of . also major distillers. When Zachariah died in January of 1826 4,821 acres; he left his entire estate to his brother Thomas. Thomas Shirley 6. 4~700 acres in Madison, Culpeper (now Rappahannock), and never married and he made no will. His death, intestate, in Shenandoah (now Page) Counties, 10 March 1795; 33 prior claims of 1845 precipitated law suits over his vast holdings which 12,532 acres. continued into the twentieth century. In addition to the land discussed below, Thomas Shirley owned $7,000 worth of stock, Land Office Treasury Warrants 1,161 to 1,164 sold to Col. James personal property worth $13,523, and ninety-five slaves valued Barbour, 7 February 1795 (Surveyed in six parcelsf' at $26,015.

23Land Office Treasury Warrant lists, Virginia State Library, Richmond. 25Dates of assignments to Walter Roe and then to Robert Oliver are given 24 Information from Land Office Treasury Warrant lists; Northern Neck on the surveys for each of these tracts in the relevant Survey Books, Virginia (still so-called although now Commonwealth grants) Grant Books: X, pp. State Library, Richmond. Oliver's deed of sale is recorded in Rappahannock 136-142, 210-213; Book 34, pp. 526-528; Book 36, pp. 84-86. In each case where County Deed Book, A, pp. 362-365. there were prior claims (Nos. 2, 4, 5, and 6), the total acreage surveyed included the amount sought by Barbour plus the total amount in prior claims. 26Madison County Deed Book 12, pp. 65-69. The rough calculation of the Thus, the "Big Survey" (No. 6) encompassed 42,700 acres plus 12,532 acres current value of this tract is based on a personal communication from the totalling 55,232 acres. Commissioner of Revenue in Madison County. 62 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 63

Among the slaves were stonemasons, blacksmiths, and coo pers.27 Commissioners were appointed by the Circuit Court for ... Madison County to sell the lands of Thomas Shirley, and the public sale was held at the late Thomas Shirley's home on 1 i Iu August 1853. The Big Survey (reduced slightly to 42,000 acres) ,:,g was divided into eight lots and sold for a total of $8,331-about i,:, g t ~ $.20 per acre. The lots, ranging in size from 1,000 to 12,000 u -: l .;;. I acres and complete with residents already living on them, were ~ $ 28 : I § i purchased, for the most part, by local merchants. B"' a 8 t = ,:3 i=.. "' As noted in Figure 2, some of Barbour's surveys, 8 l ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ including the Big Survey, encompassed prior claims, but the ... l Ig t i ~ Sheriff's deed to Zachariah and Thomas Shirley, dated 25 ,\! ~ !j ~ t ~ I 29 1 "' "' .!! 0 : ! : October 1816, contained no reference at all to the prior claims. 11 z z z ~ ~ z ~ This omission led eventually to confusion over land claims and ! r,-,..,:: ! ] ] E i E I E the notion that many families in the Park area were squatters I J l ~ l '8 l when, in fact, they were not. Moreover, this view has been ell .!I .!I" .!I .!I .!I promoted and reinforced for years by the public display in the OIi~~·••·· •:•:•: a Byrd Visitor's Center of the Park of a copy of the surveyor's plat of the "Big Survey" with a caption which read:

This 1795 survey, within the original Lord Fairfax 'Northern Neck' grant, lists the names of 33 settlers, apparently 'squatters' on this 42,700 acre tract.

Surnames of the 33 settlers, whose prior patents were omitted from the Shirley deed and were thus "apparently squatters," appear regularly in early Culpeper and Madison County records. These include the surnames: Clore, Carpenter, Crow,

Z7Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13; Madison County Will Book 4, pp. 429-430.

28Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13, last packet in the third file drawer-yellow paper over packet has: 'This file has a report of lands sold." Although the lands and other property were disposed of, the lawsuits over the disposition of the sale monies continued at least until 1902 .

I 29 • Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13; Madison County I Deed Book 6, pp. 80-83. Although the Big Survey was purchased by the • Shirleys in August of 1815, the deed is dated a year later due to the death of the Sheriff. This may have been a factor in the omission of prior claims, but there are other such instances as well that are not explained by this particular fact. 62 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 63

Among the slaves were stonemasons, blacksmiths, and coo pers.27 Commissioners were appointed by the Circuit Court for Madison County to sell the lands of Thomas Shirley, and the public sale was held at the late Thomas Shirley's home on 1 0~ j u August 1853. The Big Survey (reduced slightly to 42,000 acres) § z 0 was divided into eight lots and sold for a total of $8,331-about ] t u § $.20 per acre. The lots, ranging in size from 1,000 to 12,000 0 .l! i I u C 0. ~ ~ :;. ~ ~ j acres and complete with residents already living on them, were ! Eg purchased, for the most part, by local merchants.28 E~l u l g -~ "' E ~"' As noted in Figure 2, some of Barbour's surveys, i u 1 ~ including the Big Survey, encompassed prior claims, but the ... i ~ It 5 ..i g ~ 1~ Sheriff's deed to Zachariah and Thomas Shirley, dated 25 ~ i N i a ""' "' "' 29 1 i i =ii i i i October 1816, contained no reference at all to the prior claims. "'z. i .s - -~ ~ This omission led eventually to confusion over land claims and ! ~ "'> E!:: ! ! ! ,g ! the notion that many families in the Park area were squatters j B ~ B ! f :a :a ~ :a ~ ~ .s .s .s J.s .s when, in fact, they were not. Moreover, this view has been promoted and reinforced for years by the public display in the o•rn~os Byrd Visitor's Center of the Park of a copy of the surveyor's plat of the "Big Survey" with a caption which read:

This 1795 survey, within the original Lord Fairfax 'Northern Neck' grant, lists the names of 33 settlers, apparently 'squatters' on this 42,700 acre tract.

77Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13; Madison County Will Book 4, pp. 429-430.

28 !u Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13, last packet in the third file drawer-yellow paper over packet has: 'This file has a report of lands sold." Although the lands and other property were disposed of, the i lawsuits over the disposition of the sale monies continued at least until 1902 . • 29 I Madison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 13; Madison County I Deed Book 6, pp. 80-83. Although the Big Survey was purchased by the • Shirleys in August of 1815, the deed is dated a year later due to the death of the Sheriff. This may have been a factor in the omission of prior claims, but there are other such instances as well that are not explained by this particular fact. 64 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 65

Cubbage, Hurt, Jenkins, Smith, Lillard, Morris, Wallace, clear deed to what had been Lot 4 of the Big Survey, contain Wayland and Yowell. Descendants of some of those 33 persons ing 3,000 acres. In 1919, the Cristadoras sold twenty-six acres had land condemned for the Park; in some cases, the tracts of that Big Survey lot to George Bailey Nicholson, referred to condemned were remnants of the same lands excepted on the by George Pollock as "the mountain preacher." Nicholson was, original Big Survey plat. in fact, a River Brethren minister. In 1930 the Park condemned The presence of copper in the Blue Ridge has been long George Bailey Nicholson's twenty-six acre tract setting its value known, and it is believed that the Monacan Indians had at $910.32 exploited these copper deposits very early for purposes of trade But in New York in 1932, Florence Cristadora-the only with the Powhatan Confederacy. Anglo-European attempts to surviving family member-conveyed Big Survey Lot 4 to Noel exploit the copper potential in the Big Survey area began in B. Folsom of Yonkers, New York, for "services rendered and 1848 when some Madison County residents, including several other good and valuable considerations and $1." Yet the land Jenkinses, formed a company to mine ore on the Stony Man description given in her deed of conveyance to Folsom was tract. This resulted in very little ore being produced, but it exactly the same as it had been when the tract was sold out of motivated an intermittent copper boom that brought in outside the Big Survey in 1854; it made no mention of the 1919 sale to speculators, such as George Freeman Pollock's father, the George Bailey Nicholson or of similar sales to others of land Cristadora family, and mining companies incorporated in New out of the Lot 4 tract. Even though· the Cristadora heirs are York, New Jersey, and Illinois, to buy up prospective copper listed by Lambert in the Park condemnations, a check for lands. These flurries of copper activity and the introduction of $5,288.43 for the remaining lands of the Big Survey Lot 4 was outside corporate interests served to further confuse real titles sent ~ the State of Virginia to Folsom, not to Florence Crista to Blue Ridge lands.30 dora. As a case in point, George Freeman Pollock ran his One of the major early selling points for the Blue Ridge resort of Skyland on the 5,371-acre "Stony Man" tract that came Park idea was its supposedly vast quantities of "virgin timber." to him by way of his father's copper interests. By the time the The National Parks Bulletin for 25 December 1924 reported elder Pollock acquired the Stony Man tract, however, it had that: passed through five different mining companies since it had The proposed Shenandoah National Park consists of been bought out of the Big Survey, and as mentioned before, an irregular strip of virgin forest sixty-six miles long it came with a number of residents who had been on the land and from eight to eighteen miles wide, stretched for years. George Pollock eventually gave quit claim deeds to along the summit of the main range of the Blue several of these residents and sold land to others at prices Ridge .... The Precipitousness of the range, forbid- ranging from $.35 to $1.25 per acre, which seems to indicate his recognition of their valid land claims.31 32 In 1878 Joseph Cristadora, a wealthy entrepreneur from Madison County Deed Book 28, pp. 409-10; Deed Book 30, pp. 245-248 j & 248-251; Deed Book 32, p. 427; Deed Book 36, pp. 186-187; Deed Book 37, New York (originally from Trapani, Sicily), who had copper pp. 130-132; and Deed Book 41, pp. 162-163. Madison County Will Book 18, stock and mining interests across the U.S., also began to pp. 73-92. The deed to George Bailey Nicholson is recorded in Madison acquire land in Madison County for copper speculation. l County Deed Book 44, p. 208-10.

Although Joseph died in 1888, his heirs continued buying and 33 1 Madison County Deed Book 50, p. 449; Deed Book 51, pp. 150, 155. selling Madison County land and by 1903 they had acquired a Payment Petition in Madison County Clerk's office. This is one of the problems in using the Park tract evaluations without reference to the I outcomes of the condemnation suits on record in the courthouses. While the information the tract evaluation sheets give may be essentially accurate, they ~adison County, Ended Chancery Causes, File 7. 1 l do not necessarily indicate who received the money for the land after all claims 31Madison County Deed Book 40, p. 41; pp. 147-48; p. 150; pp. 600-01. See were made or report the amount actually received by persons after fees for also discussion in Perdue & Martin-Perdue, Appalachian Fables, p. 97. court clerks, attorneys, and others were taken out of the award. J 66 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 67

ding profitable exploitation, has saved for us through He observed that only the higher and wilder parts of the centuries of civilization more than six hundred eastern slopes had "forest resources worth notice." In that area square miles [384,000 acres] of almost untouched of about 40,450 acres, twenty percent was in clearings and native forest. eighty percent in forest. About half of the forest area had been cut over or culled for timber, and Hall indicated that there was Although the report admitted to the cutting of some timber, it only about 9,700 acres of virgin forest standing in 1914--a far asserted: cry from 384,000 acres claimed by the Parks Bulletin. For reasons best known only to themselves, the 1914 report of the partly cut areas are trifling compared with the forest examiner R. Clifford Hall was generally ignored by Park great body of the untouched forest, which constitutes boosters although correspondence indicates that eleven copies an invaluable exhibit of the wilderness that covered were sent to the Southern Appalachian National Park Commis eastern North America ... when our forefathers 36 34 sion in October of 1925. settled at Jamestown and Plymouth. In terms of the exploitation of its timber resources we should remember that the Blue Ridge is an extremely narrow Ten years earlier, in 1914, Forest Examiner R. Clifford range of mountains over much of its course through central Hall had undertaken a reconnaissance to appraise a fifty-five Virginia, and running along either side of the Ridge are mile long strip of land along the Blue Ridge for its suitability long-settled areas of farms and industry having a considerable as a National Forest; this land substantially corresponded to the appetite for wood products. But timber was early recognized area later to be considered for the Shenandoah National Park. as a resource not to be wasted, as indicated in a rental agree In his report on this area, Hall concluded: ment signed by Ambrose Atkins in 1791. Atkins, who served in the Culpeper Minute Men in the Revolution, was admon the region as a whole is so cut up by rather high 37 priced grazing lands as to make the desirability of ished "not to destroy or waste any timber." One hundred purchase by the Government at least questionable . and forty years later, Ambrose Atkin's great grandson, Jeremi .. [and] ... it does not seem clear that the benefits ah Peyton Atkins depended on the area's timber resources to would justify the high cost of the interference with make quantities of barrels in his large cooperage near Thorn private enterprise. ton's Gap-an enterprise that was condemned for the Park. In earlier times on the western slope of the Blue Ridge, He advised that this location "might be considered as a possible timber was harvested to make charcoal for the numerous iron area of third rate importance," after other "more desirable lands furnaces and forges in the Shenandoah Valley; commercial in the Southern Appalachians" had been obtained.35 potteries, which were established early in the Strasburg area of More specifically, Hall observed that there was little the Shenandoah Valley, burned large amounts of wood in timber on the western slope of the Blue Ridge, but on the firing their kilns. Tanneries throughout the area produced eastern slope lumbering was an important industry--generally thousands of hides each year, consuming about one ton of bark carried out by small scale operations--and that there was for each ten hides produced. Before the chestnut blight struck enough timber there to maintain the industry for some years. in the early twentieth century, the American Chestnut provided

34Quoted in the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, State Chamber of 36Hall, Ibid., pp. 2-3. Letter dated 21 October 1925 from P. J. Paxton, Commerce Document No. 3, 1925. Acting Assistant District Forester to Colonel Glynn Smith, Secretary, Southern Appalachian National Park Commission sent with eleven copies of Hall's 35"Report on the Reconnaissance of the Blue Ridge in Virginia Between report. Simmons and Manassas Gaps," Department of Agriculture, September 1914 37 (R.E.C. Report No. 1), pp. 6-7. Culpeper County Deed Book Q pp. 354-356. 68 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANDOAH 69 wood for railroad ties, fence rails and shingles, as well as saw Trmber Corporation of Cleveland, Ohio, for $355,769. Conveyed timber. In 1835, sixty-one sawmills in Page County produced in this transaction were about 6,383 acres outright and 7,150 planks for local use and also for export down the Shenandoah acres of timber rights.40 River. In 1860 Page County mills were producing eleven Even before the above transaction was completed, West million board feet of lumber. These earlier and heavier de Virginia Trmber had been in Madison. County buying up mands for wood on the Valley side of the Blue Ridge no doubt rights-of-way for a narrow-gauge railroad line, which they accounted in large part for the general lack of timber on the constructed from Orange, Virginia to Graves Mill in Madison western slopes noted by Hall.38 County with a spur line up Garth Run. Between 1920 and 1926 Serious outside interests in the commercial exploitation the company cut timber on the lands it had acquired and of the timber of the Southern Appalachians began to develop hauled out saw logs on the Rapidan Railway.41 The Park land generally about the 1880s as older sources in New England and appraisers coming in some five years later often commented on the Great Lakes region began to decline. In 1902 the Virginia their evaluation sheets that the West Virginia Trmber Company Hardwood Manufacturing Company of New York City agreed had cut "absolutely clean." to purchase hickory, ash, and locust timber from J. J. Miller, West VaCo did not cut "absolutely clean," but it got as whose 6,000 acres of land straddled the Blue Ridge with half much fast money as it could and left the more difficult or being in Rappahannock and half in Warren County. Even poorer quality timber for someone else. The company sold its though that purchase largely marks the beginning of commer eighty-seven tracts to the Ward-Rue Lumber Company in 1926 cial enterprise and external interests in timber resources on the for $30,000. Ward-Rue began timbering, but sold fifty-five of eastern slopes of the Blue Ridge, it must be remembered that the eighty-seven tracts to the Madison limber Corporation on Hall's comments about the small-scale nature of the lumber 21 January 1929. At the time of land appraisals in the summer industry on that side of the ridge still pertained in 1914.39 of 1931, the Madison Timber Corporation owned 12,631 acres During and following World War I, however, the high and had timber rights on about 3,326 additional acres. prices for lumber stimulated a frenzy of activity. In Madison Ward-Rue owned timber rights on about 1,200 acres and was County, between 18 July 1916 and 24 September 1918, David cutting timber even as the appraisers were on the ground Jamison of New Castle, Pennsylvania purchased eighty-seven making their surveys. Both Ward-Rue and Madison Timber tracts-sometimes buying land outright and sometimes buying were well aware that the park was going to be established and the timber rights for $7-$8 an acre. In August 1919 Jamison and they were attempting to get as much timber out as possible his two partners sold their lands and timber rights for before the door was shut permanently.42 $205,821.27 to three timber agents from Cuyahoga County, If companies and corporations were acting out of their Ohio, and Kanawha County, West Virginia. These men, G.E. own self-interest, then we should not be too surprised to find Breece, A.G. Webb and G.A. Porter, almost immediately sold individuals doing the same. George Freeman Pollock was these lands and rights, as well as the timber rights on another touted by some as a model conservationist. Nevertheless, he Madison County tract of 7,175 acres, to the West Virginia sold the tan bark from 3,000 acres of his tract and the mineral

4°See especially, Madison County Deed Book 44, pp. 510-64; Deed Book 38Joseph Martin, comp., and A New Comprehensive Gaz.etteer of Virginia and 45, pp. 1-54. the District of Columbia: containing a copious collection . . . (Charlottesville, Virginia, 1835). 1860 Census of Industry, Page County. 41 Douglas W. Tanner, Madison County Place Names (Charlottesville: Occasional Publication No. 21 of the Virginia Place Name Society, 1978), p. 39Ronald Eller, D. Miners, Millhands, and Mountaineers: Industrialization of 65. the Appalachian South (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1982), p. 87. Rappahannock County Deed Book V, pp. 508-()(); Deed Book 31, pp. 371-75; 42Madison County Deed Book 47, pp. 375-391; Deed Book 49, pp. 192-205; & Deed Book 32, pp. 514-17. and tract evaluation sheets in Madison County Clerk's office. 70 Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH Perdue and Martin-Perdue: SHENANOOAH 71 rights on his land. But if his claims are to be believed, he made personal advantage of big opportunities or to bring about vast, a far heavier demand on wood resources than did most of his encompassing, social change. mountain neighbors. He stated that he used 800 cords of wood A few years ago, we walked up into the Park towards each summer at Skyland and allowed that he occasionally Hazel Mountain with some fifteen members and descendants consumed 300 cords of wood in a single bonfire display, which of several Atkins family lines. As we walked along, seventy-six could be seen at the Washington Monument in Washington, year old Leander Atkins talked about his old homesite. He D.C.43 remarked about how his father and grandfather before him had Pollock gave every evidence in his autobiography, worked so hard to clear the land and to bring it under cultiva Skyland, that he was outgoing, gregarious, and had a great tion. He waved toward Oventop Mountain on the opposite need to perform and receive approval. He loved to entertain ridge and said: "It used to be so beautiful. You could sit right lavishly with all manner of extravaganzas--a fact that is here and see nothin' but corn fields all the way over to the top attested to by the photographs of bim and his guests dressed of that mountain. Now all you can see is trees in every in courtly costume for balls and jousting tournaments or direction.''45 Suffice it to say that one man's cornfield is adorned with body paint and on horseback to portray Indians. another man's wasteland. Pollock consistently over-extended himself and was constantly in debt. Evidence in court and other records show that by the 1930s he was in serious financial trouble and in danger of losing everything. As the Park was being established, he was being sued by his numerous creditors who hoped to have the court create an order of precedence regarding who would be paid first when his share of the condemnation monies was received.44 In terms of the history of acquisition and use of land within the bounds of the territory now known as Shenandoah National Park, the heaviest exploitation of resources through time has been carried out by speculators (whether as individu als or corporate actors) and profiteers in land, minerals, timber, and tourism. And it has been those interests that have shaped the rhetoric to their own advantage, have used the law to deny the legal rights of others, and assigned different values to judgements of idleness and waste in accord with their own interests and ideological inclinations. The fault lies not in the culture and subsistence lifestyle of the mountain people but in the hands of those who had the power and resources to take

4-1George Freeman Pollock, Skyland: The Heart of the Shenandoah National Park (Berryville, Virginia: Chesapeake Book Co., 1960), p. 275.

"Pollock, Ibid. Madison County Deed Book 39, pp. 320, 321; Petition of lien holders, dated 31 January 1934, in Park papers, Madison County Oerk's 45Nancy J. Martin-Perdue, "Clouds Over the Blue Ridge," Commonwealth: office. The Magazine of Virginia, Vol. 50, No. 5 (May 1983), p. 59.