Topics covered in twelve recently approved and forthcoming state historical markers include two signs highlighting the soldiering exploits during the Revolutionary War of a “free person of color” from Albemarle County and a Pamunkey Indian, George Mason’s Fairfax County parish and church, and the origins of Winchester’s Shenandoah University in Rockingham County.
- The Friends of Widewater State Park is sponsoring a marker about Palmer Hayden (1890-1973), who was born Peyton Cole Hedgeman near Widewater in Stafford County. Hayden served in the U.S. Army in World War I, and achieved prominence as a painter during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. He lived in France for five years after earning first prize in a painting competition in 1926 sponsored by the Harmon Foundation. His “most notable paintings are his portrayals of ordinary African Americans in everyday life and his depictions of the legendary John Henry,” the marker will read.
Here’s the full text of the marker:
Palmer Hayden (1890-1973)
Palmer Hayden, artist, was born Peyton Cole Hedgeman nearby in Widewater. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and later studied art at Columbia University and in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. He achieved prominence as a painter during the Harlem Renaissance. A first prize in a painting competition sponsored by the Harmon Foundation in 1926 led to a five-year stay in France. Although Hayden’s works include seascapes and African themes, most notable are his portrayals of ordinary African Americans in everyday life and his depictions of the legendary John Henry. The Museum of African American Art in Los Angeles houses a large collection of his work.
Sponsor: Friends of Widewater State Park
Locality: Stafford County
Proposed Location: Inside Widewater State Park
Revolutionary War soldier Pvt. Shadrach Battles (ca. 1746-ca. 1824) “was one of at least 5,000 black soldiers who served in the Continental Line,” explains the marker, the location of which is to be determined. Battles joined a local militia unit by June 1775, and a Virginia regiment by December 1776. He fought in the battles at Brandywine and Germantown in Pennsylvania, and Monmouth in New Jersey, spent the winter at Valley Forge, and participated in the Southern Campaign. Battles returned to Albemarle County after the war, living as a carpenter and laborer.
Another forthcoming marker will recall Pamunkey Indian Robert Mush (ca. 1758-1837), who attended the Brafferton Indian School at the College of William and Mary. In 1776, Mush (or Mursh) enlisted as a private in the 15th Virginia Regiment. Like Battles, Mush also fought at Brandywine and Germantown during 1777. In 1780, he was taken prisoner of war in Charleston, South Carolina, and exchanged about 14 months later. “Mush later served as a member of the Pamunkey Tribal Government and became a Baptist minister,” the sign’s text reads, before he settled with his family in South Carolina among Catawba Indians.
The Battles and Mush markers are sponsored by the Mary Elizabeth Conover Foundation, which is also sponsoring the marker “George Mason at Pohick Church” that will be erected in Fairfax County, where Mason (1725-1792) resided at Gunston Hall.
Mason, principal author of the Virginia Declaration of Rights and Virginia’s first state constitution, served as a member of the local parish vestry and was entrusted with broad ecclesiastical and civil responsibilities in the community. He served as churchwarden and supervised the construction of the new Pohick Church, completed in 1774. During his tenure in the House of Delegates and as a “representative to public assemblies, and private citizen, Mason pursued measures that promoted individual rights, religious freedom, and the separation of church and state,” the marker’s text concludes.
Shenandoah University is sponsoring a sign to highlight its roots in the Town of Dayton in Rockingham County, where the marker will soon rise. The Rev. Abram P. Funkhouser established Shenandoah Seminary in the county in 1875. The coeducational seminary benefitted from the support of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, which took formal ownership in 1884. As the school’s name changed periodically, so did its scope. It evolved from a high school to a junior college to a four-year institution. “In 1960, Shenandoah College and the Shenandoah Conservatory of Music (which had originated as the college’s music department) moved to Winchester. They reunited in 1974 and became Shenandoah University in 1991,” the marker text concludes.
The Town of Marion is sponsoring three new markers focused on African American history in Smyth County:
- A marker about Mount Pleasant Methodist Church will recall it formed around 1871 after African Americans in the area, reflecting a contemporary statewide trend, withdrew from white-led congregations to establish the church. The congregation shared a sanctuary with a Baptist congregation, before erecting a new brick sanctuary in 1914. After serving as a hub for the black community, Mount Pleasant Methodist Church closed in 2002.
- The marker “The Crying Tree” will highlight the story of Sarah Elizabeth “Sallie” Adams (1841-1913), a young girl of about five when she, her mother, and other family members were sold at a slave auction at the Smyth County Courthouse. The results left the enslaved Sallie alone and a “body servant” to the sickly wife of Marion resident Thomas Thurman. Over the years, Sallie would express her grief by crying next to a white oak tree in the Thurman yard and “sometimes hug the tree and tell it about her burdens and sorrows.” The community named it “The Crying Tree.”
- Carnegie High School in Marion will also be remembered. Amos Carnegie, a pastor in 1927 at Mount Pleasant Methodist Church, led the black community in raising money and securing a grant from the Julius Rosenwald Fund to build the four-teacher school building. It opened in 1931 and closed in 1965, when local schools were desegregated. “Katherine Johnson, who later made crucial contributions to the U.S. space program at NASA, taught [at the school] for several years,” the marker will read.
Elsewhere in Virginia, three other markers also center on African American history:
- A privately sponsored marker coming to Lynchburg will summarize the career of Morris Stanley Alexander (1891-1977), an African American who was the first caddy master and a longtime golf professional at Oakwood Country Club, which opened in the city in 1914. For more than 50 years, Alexander taught fundamentals and golf etiquette at the club, and a tournament in his name attracted young golfers during the 1950s. Four of his “students later won Virginia amateur state championships, and two were United States and British amateur champions,” the marker concludes.
- New Kent County is sponsoring a marker about Samuel Wilson Crump (1919-1995), among the first African Americans elected to public office in Virginia under the state’s Constitution of 1902, which disfranchised many black voters. In 1955, voters elected Crump to the New Kent County Board of Supervisors, making him the board’s first African American member since the 19th century. “During Crump’s 12 years of service, he often provided the lone vote against measures designed to maintain school segregation,” according to the approved text.
- The Cameron Foundation in Petersburg is sponsoring a marker for the city that highlights First Baptist Church, one of the nation’s oldest African American congregations, which traces its origins to 1756. In 1820 the congregation established itself in Petersburg and opened a sanctuary there in 1863. That building was burned in 1866 by arsonists targeting the city’s black churches. The present sanctuary was dedicated in 1872. In 1962, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at the church during a regional meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
The City of Portsmouth is sponsoring a marker to recognize its Cradock Historic District. Begun in 1918 to accommodate the rapid influx of workers at the U.S. Navy Yard in Norfolk during World War I, Cradock was one of the nation’s earliest federally funded planned communities. The neighborhood was designated for white workers while nearby Truxtun, also begun in 1918, was for African Americans. Cradock was the largest project completed by the U.S. Housing Corporation.
The texts for all twelve markers were approved September 19 during a quarterly meeting of the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, which is authorized to designate new historical markers. Typically, it can take upwards of three months or more before new markers are ready to be dedicated by their sponsors, who must pay for the manufacturing expenses of their approved marker.
Virginia’s historical highway marker program, which began in 1927 with installation of the first markers along U.S. 1, is considered the oldest such program in the nation. Currently there are more than 2,600 official state markers, most of which are maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, except in those localities outside of VDOT’s authority.
