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Area History at The Pink Box
Area History at The Pink Box
“The Pink Box,” a sweet, elegant whitewashed brick building built between 1800 and 1820, is located at 8 North Madison Street and once was used by the attorney son and grandson of Leven Powell, Middleburg’s acknowledged founder.
Its location was in the heart of a bustling village: behind two taverns, The Red Fox Inn and Colonial Inn; and in front of what once was the Wanzer livery stable and blacksmith shop, now Akre Capital and the Courtney Kennedy Shop.
The Pink Box is home to the Middleburg Museum and is now open to the public. It includes two small parlor rooms with fireplaces and large windows, an attic room above, and a wood frame addition with a bathroom. During July and August, a team of museum board members, volunteers and interns were freshening the interior and adapting it for exhibits and visitors.
Under the guidance of board member Vicky Lewis, an architect with a strong background in creating museums, the walls of the front room have been painted with Ralph Lauren’s “Edwardian Linen” with Farrow and Ball’s “Mascarpone” trim. The space has been draped with unbleached muslin panels intended to be light and welcoming for an orientation to the landscape and community.
While the museum is located in Middleburg, the community and its history hardly stops at the town line. It’s defined by the surrounding Blue Ridge and Bull Run mountains, which enclose a few dozen historic villages located along old Indian pathways, creeks and crossroads.
Most have less than several dozen residents. Marshall is the largest with close to 2,000 residents. Local folks travel small interconnecting country roads to work, shop, worship, attend school, exercise, and visit friends and family.
The surrounding 150,000-plus acres of fertile historic farmland is the reason and backdrop for centuries of agricultural heritage. That includes Sioux and Algonkian native peoples, to English, Scottish, German, Welsh settler immigrants with enslaved Africans, and to New Yorkers and other horse and rural life loving persons from all over.
Working with local historians and advised by other local museums, the Middleburg Museum is developing a brief timeline of the community life and conflicts that shaped this landscape. Photographs, biographies of villages and a few local artifacts and archeology will help tell the stories from “Indian Trade and Land Speculation” to “Tobacco and Wheat Plantations” to “Horse and Hunt Country” to “Heritage and Stewardship.”
Within the timeline, the museum will commemorate the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Revolutionary War, and U.S. independence with a display of its copy of the Oct. 20, 1774 “Articles of Association,” a document produced by the first Continental Congress that recorded the first unified action of the American colonies.
Local burgesses and Virginia leadership helped to inspire boycott action against Great Britain first in the colony and later called for a Continental Congress.
The back parlor, now painted “French Gray,” also from Farrow and Ball, will house various exhibits. The first will highlight the local historic gravel road system that connects local communities. This is a partnership with the ‘’America’s Routes’’ preservation group highlighting the local historic gravel road system that connects our communities
The event is scheduled Oct. 22-27 to coincide with the Town of Middleburg’s hosting of the Mille Miglia race for classic and vintage cars. Participants will be hosted at the Salamander Resort and will depart each day from The Pink Box.
