Fall Foliage Adventures

This is the time of the year for a walk in the woods and this article recommends an alternative outing to the Appalachian Trail: the Great Eastern Trail (GET).  This 1,800-mile trail has as its northern terminus the Finger Lakes in upstate New York and, when completed, will terminate in the south in Alabama.  The GET trail is a volunteer, cooperative effort by local hiking groups to connect existing foot paths in the Appalachian and Allegheny Mountains.

1939 Turkey Festival Queen's Coronation

The coronation of the 1939 Turkey Festival Queen drew an estimated 4, 000 spectators to Wilson Hall on the Madison College campus. The event took place at 4:30 in the afternoon on Monday, September 4, 1939. It was one of the highlights of the festival’s opening day activities.

The ceremony began with musical selections played by Miss Dolly Armentrout and/or sung by a men’s chorus under the direction of Professor Nelson T. Huffman. The procession was led by two trumpeters and the 50 ladies-in-waiting, all of whom were local high school girls. Next came 50 princesses each representing the Virginia county from which she hailed/came. Following the princesses were four flower girls; Miss Natalie Zirkle, Miss Alice Jean Pickett, Miss Elizabeth Switzer, and Miss Anne Switzer. Each flower girl carried a bouquet of fall flowers which she strew along the path. Miss Helen Wine and Miss Cleta Liskey attended the Queen as maids-of-honor. George Grattan IV and William Thomas served as the crown bearer and scepter bearer respectively. The festival queen entered to a burst of applause from the audience.

Miss Ruth Wampler had the honor of being crowned the 1939 Turkey Festival Queen. U.S. Senator Harry Flood Byrd placed the crown of white turkey feathers upon the queen’s head. Bridgewater College President Dr. Paul H. Bowman presented the queen with her scepter. Before the recessional began Reverend Beverly Tucker White offered a prayer and Miss Sibyl Shover sang a solo.

Do you want to know more about the 1939 Turkey Festival Queen’s coronation ceremony? You can read about it on the Daily News-Record microfilm reels at Massanutten Regional Library.

Source:

McNeill, J. M. “Queen Rockingham’s Coronation Stately Event of Rare Beauty; Senator Byrd Places Crown.” Daily News-Record [Harrisonburg, VA] 5 September 1939.

Crossword Puzzles

History

Written word games are probably as old as the first alphabet and stylus which allowed man to scratch a cryptic message in the dirt or sand or on stone. Word squares were found in the ruins of Pompeii (79AD).[1] In the 19th century, word games were included in children’s puzzle books.

Civil War in Virginia Exhibit

The Civil War In Virginia exhibit opens today, Monday August 27, 2012.  Five boxes arrived last Tuesday and we spent Thursday putting the panels together.  There are 5 large two sided panels and 10 small pull up banners.  It was like putting large sleeping bags over frames.  Come and see if you can figure out how we did it.  The panel exhibit has ten themes that go beyond the experience of the soldier.   In addition to the panels there are QR codes on several of the panels that will allow visitors to view additional educational videos, 360-degree renderings of Civil War objects and additional content.    

Visitors are encouraged to enter a drawing for the box set The Civil War Experience which contains the following set of books:

Hardtack and Coffee by John D. Billings

Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses S. Grant

Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee by his son Captain Robert E. Lee

From Manassas to Appomattox by James Longstreet

The winner will be drawn September 10^th.  Visit and enter as many times as you like.   

We will also have a picture from our local photograph collection of a Confederate Reunion held in Harrisonburg in 1933.  Come and see if you can identify anyone!

We hope to see you soon at the library.

Mr. Hotchkiss Rambles Part 3

Read Part 1 HERE

Read Part 2 HERE

Part 3

We saw a thunder storm below us, in the Valley, that evening, and looked over the fog, that wound through every nook in the morning. The sun rises here long before it does in the valley. The good housewife assured us that the frosts were often visible below when they had none, and the early vegetables were rarely injured by the “Spring frosts.” What charming summer homes might be found in these elevated regions for the dwellers in the cities and the lowlands of the South; the pure, dry atmosphere, invigorating with its ever breath; the sparkling, lively water; the glorious scenery; the abundance of sport for the angler, the hunter, and the student of nature; the soil, that under the hand of industry, would yield abundantly; and, above all, its nearness to the great lines of travel, (as it is not more than 15 or 20 miles to the Manassas Gap Railroad,) make this an inviting region to those looking for country summer houses. 

Mr. Hotchkiss Rambles Part 2

Read Part 1 HERE

Part 2

It was arranged to start a deer, on the Pendleton mountain the next morning, for the benefit of my friend R__, as “no flocks that range the valley free, to slaughter I condemn,” so I took no part in the matter. We were up betimes, and after breakfast rode up to the mountain top, while two boys of our host (manly little fellows, by the way) went to start up the game with a dog. Our hunters waited at the stands for some time, but no deer came to hand, so said good morning to our host and his boys, and followed our guide along the top of the mountain. In passing, I might as well say that we went to look over the domain known as the Waterman Survey,[i] occupying nearly all the north-western end of Rockingham County, and formerly containing 93,000 acres of land, as surveyed by Alexander Herring, in 1795, he being county surveyor at that time. We can form an idea of the size of such a body of land, when we state that the bounding lines stretch about 60 miles, one of them being eleven miles long, in one direction. We found a good bridge path along the top of the mountain, and had a very fine view of the valleys of Pendleton; across the chains of the Alleghenies the view is bounded by Cheat mountain in the distance.

Mr. Hotchkiss Rambles Part 1

On Tuesday, August 17, 1858, Jedediah Hotchkiss,[i] a skilled draftsman and geologist on assignment for the Rockingham Register, set out on a tour the northwestern section of Rockingham County. The Hotchkiss letter to the newspaper (and another [ii]) that follows was also appended to The Waterman Lands brochure, published in 1859 by W. H. Ruffner. This brochure advertised the sale of “75,000 acres of Mountain Land in Virginia with an Essay on the Best Uses of Virginia Mountain Land.” Many of the parties cited in this pamphlet and the letters are worthy of a dissertation.