| From Winchester, Virginia we travelled along the Blue Ridge Mountains via the Blue Ridge Parkway to Stanardsville, Virginia, staying five nights to visit Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, James Maddison’s Montpelier, Lynchburg and Appomattox.
We stayed in a mountain lodge cabin at Lydia Mountain Lodge & Log Cabins in the Shenandoah National Park (bear country!) about 20km north east of Stanardsville. Black bears in Virginia – a few words about our experience in the cabin Black bears are common in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia – fact. So staying in a log cabin in the depths of the Shenandoah National Park we were quite likely to come across some bears. We did. This is my tale of meeting our first bear. We used to have a hot tub and a beer or three each evening on the porch, retiring into the cabin after it got dark. One morning I woke early and couldn’t remember switching off the hot tub jets the previous evening, so I went out onto the porch to check. Having checked that it was indeed OK I looked up to see an adult female black bear staring at me no more than 3 metres away with her three cubs behind her (luckily!). I slowly retraced my steps walking backwards into the cabin, locking the door thinking ‘this door isn’t going to stop a black bear’. I went back to bed thinking now I know what it’s like to be canned food! Not an experience you often get in Lancashire, England.
The Blue Ridge Parkway is a National Parkway and All-American Road in the United States, noted for its scenic beauty. The parkway, which is America’s longest linear park, runs for 469 miles (755 km) through 29 Virginia and North Carolina counties, linking Shenandoah National Park to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It runs mostly along the spine of the Blue Ridge, a major mountain chain that is part of the Appalachian Mountains. Its southern terminus is at U.S. Route 441 (US 441) on the boundary between Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina, from which it travels north to Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The roadway continues through Shenandoah as Skyline Drive, a similar scenic road which is managed by a different National Park Service unit. Charlottesville Charlottesville is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after the British Queen consort (and Electress of Hanover) Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who as the wife of George III was Virginia’s last Queen. Charlottesville was the home of two Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe. During their terms as Governor of Virginia, they lived in Charlottesville, and traveled to and from Richmond, along the 71-mile (114 km) historic Three Notch’d Road. Orange, located 26 miles (42 km) northeast of the city, was the hometown of President James Madison. The University of Virginia, founded by Jefferson and one of the original Public Ivies, straddles the city’s southwestern border. Monticello, 3 miles (5 km) southeast of the city, is, along with the University of Virginia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Stanardsville The Town of Stanardsville was established in 1794 and became the county seat when Greene County was formed from Orange County in 1838. The Town is named after its founder, William Stanard, member of a prominent Virginia family and heir to a portion of the original Octonia land grant issued in 1722. Stanardsville is one of the few intact courthouse towns that grew up along transportation routes crossing the Piedmont region. The town sits on a hill close to the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah National Park. In the 1800s, it gained notoriety as the last stop for travelers crossing the mountains at Swift Run Gap, just a few miles west of town. Stanardsville had hotels, taverns, restaurants, movie theater, and numerous shops of all kinds. It became a thriving commercial gateway to mountain businesses and the Shenandoah Valley. As the county seat, Stanardsville is home to the County Courthouse, County Administration Building, the Greene County Library Branch, and the County schools. Also nearby are the Green County Historical Society Museum and the satellite campus of Piedmont Virginia Community College. Source: http://www.stanardsville.org/about/ Monticello
Source: Wikipedia Montpelier James Madison’s Montpelier, located in Orange County, Virginia, was the plantation house of the Madison family, including fourth President of the United States, James Madison, and his wife Dolley. The 2,650-acre (10.7 km2) property is open seven days a week with the mission of engaging the public with the enduring legacy of Madison’s most powerful idea: government by the people. Montpelier was declared a National Historic Landmark and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. It was included in the Madison-Barbour Rural Historic District in 1991. In 1983, the last private owner of Montpelier, Marion duPont Scott, bequeathed the estate to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. Gordonsville Gordonsville is a town in Orange County in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Located about 19 miles northeast of Charlottesville and 65 miles northwest of Richmond. The town celebrated its bicentennial in 2013, two hundred years after local innkeeper Nathaniel Gordon was appointed the area’s first postmaster, thus officially creating the area known as Gordonsville. It was strategically important during the Civil War, due to its location on the Virginia Central Railroad Lynchburg Lynchburg is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains along the banks of the James River, Lynchburg is known as the “City of Seven Hills” or the “Hill City”. In the 1860s, Lynchburg was the only major city in Virginia that was not recaptured by the Union before the end of the American Civil War. During the American Civil War, Lynchburg served as a Confederate transportation hub and supply depot. It had 30 hospitals, often placed in churches, hotels, and private homes. In June 1864, Union forces of General David Hunter approached within 1-mile (1.6 km) as they drove south from the Shenandoah Valley. Confederate troops under General John McCausland harassed them. Meanwhile, the city’s defenders hastily erected breastworks on Amherst Heights. Defenders were led by General John C. Breckinridge, who was an invalid from wounds received at the Battle of Cold Harbor. Union General Philip Sheridan appeared headed for Lynchburg on June 10, as he crossed the Chickahominy River and cut the Virginia Central Railroad. However, Confederate cavalry under General Wade Hampton, including the 2nd Virginia Cavalry from Lynchburg under General Thomas T. Munford, defeated his forces at the two-day Battle of Trevillian Station in Louisa County, and they withdrew. This permitted fast-marching troops under Confederate General Jubal Early to reach within four miles of Lynchburg on June 16 and tear up the tracks of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad to inhibit travel by Union reinforcements, while Confederate reinforcements straggled in from Charlottesville. On June 18, 1864, in the Battle of Lynchburg, Early’s combined forces, though outnumbered, repelled Union General Hunter’s troops. Lynchburg’s defenders had taken pains to create an impression that the Confederate forces within the city were much larger than they were in fact. For example, a train was continuously run up and down the tracks while drummers played and Lynchburg citizens cheered as if reinforcements were disembarking. Local prostitutes took part in the deception, misleading their Union clients about the large number of Confederate reinforcements. Narcissa Owen (Cherokee), wife of the President of the Lynchburg and Tennessee Railroad, later wrote about her similar deception of Union spies. From April 6 to 10, 1865, Lynchburg served as the capital of Virginia after the Confederate government fled from Richmond. Governor William Smith and the Commonwealth’s executive and legislative branches escaped to Lynchburg as Richmond surrendered on April 3. Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, roughly 20-mile (32 km) east of Lynchburg, ending the Civil War. Lynchburg surrendered on April 12, to Union General Ranald S. Mackenzie. Poplar Forest Poplar Forest is a plantation and plantation house in Forest, Bedford County, Virginia (just south of Lynchburg). Thomas Jefferson designed the plantation and used the property as a private retreat and a revenue-generating plantation. Jefferson inherited the property in 1773 and began designing and working on the plantation in 1806. While Jefferson is the most famous individual associated with the property, it had several owners before being purchased for restoration, preservation, and exhibition in 1984. Poplar Forest was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971 and is presently operated as a historic house museum by the nonprofit Corporation for Jefferson’s Poplar Forest. Appomattox Appomattox is a town in Appomattox County, Virginia. The town was named for the Appomattox River. The river was named after the Appomattoc Native American tribe, one of the Algonquian-speaking Powhatan Confederacy, historically based in the coastal area and encountered by the English before the tribes of the Piedmont. The Appamatuck historically lived somewhat to the east of the present town, around the area of present-day Petersburg. At the time of European encounter, the area of Appomattox County above the Fall Line was part of the territory of the Manahoac tribe, who spoke a Siouan language. The town is located three miles west of the restored historic village of Appomattox Court House, the site of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, essentially ending the American Civil War. The area is preserved as Appomattox Court House National Historical Park and is administered by the National Park Service. At the time of the Civil War, the present community of Appomattox was the site of a railroad depot on the line between Petersburg and Lynchburg, a stop on the Southside Railroad. The town was first named “Nebraska” in 1855. In 1895 it was renamed “West Appomattox”. The first postmaster of “Nebraska, Virginia”, was Samuel D. McDearmon. Near the end of the Civil War, Robert E. Lee made a last attempt to reach the depot, hoping to transport the Army of Northern Virginia south by railroad to meet Joseph E. Johnston’s larger Army of Tennessee, then located in Greensboro, North Carolina. The arrival of Federal troops and their blocking Lee’s army from the depot led to Lee’s surrender in the home of Wilmer McLean, on April 9. Johnston later surrendered 98,270 Confederate troops (the largest surrender of the war), marking the end of the conflict on April 26, 1865. Small bands of soldiers continued fighting until June 1865. Though President Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, slaves in the southern states were not freed until the surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9. Though the last of the slaves weren’t freed until June 19, the surrender at Appomattox is the event that would hammer the final nail in slavery’s coffin. Today, each April, the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park commemorates this event with a luminary ceremony, wherein a lantern is lit for each of the 4,600 slaves freed in Appomattox County alone. The railroad became the Atlantic, Mississippi and Ohio Railroad in 1870. The inconvenience of the railroad’s location to the original Appomattox Court House in the village of Clover Hill led to the decline of the courthouse community. After fire destroyed the courthouse building in 1892, the county relocated the court to the depot area, which formally became the county seat in 1894. The railroad became a line in the Norfolk and Western Railway and then the Norfolk Southern Railway. The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is a preserved 19th century village in Appomattox County, Virginia. The village is famous for the site of the Battle of Appomattox Court House and contains the house of Wilmer McLean, where the surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia under Robert E. Lee to Union commander Ulysses S. Grant took place on April 9, 1865, effectively ending the American Civil War. The McLean House was the site of the surrender conference, but the village itself is named for the presence nearby of what is now preserved as the Old Appomattox Court House. The park was established in 1935. The village was made a National Monument in 1940 and a National Historical Park in 1954. It is located about three miles (5 km) east of Appomattox, Virginia, the location of the Appomattox Station and the “new” Appomattox Court House. It is in the center of the state about 25 miles (40 km) east of Lynchburg, Virginia. The park has a couple of dozen restored buildings, a few ruins and some cemeteries. ___________________________________________ Photos on this page are of The Blue Ridge Parkway, Lydia Lodge Cabins, Stanardsville, Lynchburg and Appomattox. Photos of Monticello are publised in the Antiquities / Historic Houses Section here: Photos of Montpelier are publised in the Antiquities / Historic Houses Section here: Photos of The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park are published in the Antiquities / Historic Houses Section here: The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park |
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The Blue Ridge Parkway
The Blue Ridge Mountains from the Blue Ridge Parkway highway
Lay-by on the Blue Ridge Parkway
Notice how busy the Parkway is !
Yet another of the superb lay-bys
Statue at a rest stop on the Parkway
Lydia Mountain Lodge Cabin
Finding the cabin – somewhere along Mountain Laurel Pass
This is the entrance drive to our cabin
Collecting the mail !
It’s somewhere down here !
Sugar Shack cabin – our base for five days
Essential hot tub
The view from the porch
Roaming black bear with three cubs ! Rather close hence the shaking camera !
Upturned dog dish found one morning on the porch – overturned by bears (we had heard scuffling in the night)
They are not joking ! Warning leaflet in the cabin.
New cabin under construction (cabins were well distanced from each other)
Charlottesville
Gordonsville
Lynchburg / Poplar Forest
Appomattox Court House National Historical Park
Appomattox Courthouse
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The Blue Ridge Parkway
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the labor of enslaved African people for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side.
