Shenandoah Valley

By Renée S. Gordon History Travel Writer

Virginia’s 140-miles long Shenandoah Valley lies between the Allegheny and the Blue Ridge Mountain. This incredibly beautiful region has been a staging ground for history since the 1600s and for Native Americans for approximately 11,000 years prior to that.

The Chester and Manassas Gaps afforded natural access for people and goods into the valley via the Shenandoah River. In 1788 Front Royal was formally founded as a river town. During the Revolution the area supplied much needed goods to the colonists and they continued to supply both America and Europe in the 19th-century. discoverfrontroyal. com

Front Royal was originally named LeHewtown, in honor of the French Huguenot landowner who held 200-acres in 1754. The origin of the city’s name is unclear, but some believe that early French inhabitants referred to it as the royal frontier or, “le front royal,” or, that the colonial militia had difficulty following directional commands so they were told to “front the Royal Oak,” a giant oak tree on the parade ground. The city was made Warren County’s seat in 1840. The Alexandria, Orange and Manassas Gap Railroad began service in the 1850s and that, other transportation routes, Valley’s geography and its food production, made the city of enormous strategic importance to both sides during the Civil War.

The Battle of Front Royal Driving Tour consists of ten stops that interpret antebellum and Civil War history. Each stop is designated with a marker and brochures with driving directions, maps and site information and are available at the Visitor’s Center, the point of departure. The 16-mile trail winds throughout the town and along the banks of the Shenandoah River. Much of the landscape has undergone very little change. The 170-acre Front Royal Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. There is a 33-site walking tour. warrenheritagesociety.org

Because of the number of troops in Front Royal it was also a hotbed of spies the most famous of which was the notorious Confederate spy Belle Boyd. The 19-year old Belle and her mother relocated from Winchester after her father joined the Confederate army.

In 1862 a Union soldier insulted her mother and Belle shot him. At the time of the Battle of Fort Royal she managed to pass through enemy lines and give information to Stonewall Jackson and facilitated his decision to attack the Union. Belle was sent to prison three times. She survived the war, wed three times and became an actress. She may have been the model for Scarlett O’Hara.

The Belle Boyd Cottage is a typical 2 over 2 with a central hall. There are no original furnishings but the flooring is original. Highlights of the tour are the many photographs of Belle and an outstanding portrait that symbolically captures her life and spirit.

The Balthis House is a Federal-style townhouse built as a 2-story, timber-framed house with dependencies. The original section of the house is dated from 1788 and is the oldest extant house in the city.

Mrs. Milton Fristoe held Mary Fristoe as a slave and she continued as a worker after Emancipation. In 1908, upon the death of her employer she received an inheritance that allowed her to purchase a rental property at 46 Chester St. Mary died in 1911, at 55, and was interred in the Fristoe family plot.

Rose Hill is a private dwelling but it is possible to view the exterior of the building. The 2-story Greek Revival home with Federal elements was constructed in 1830. South of the house sits what was once a 2-story wooden slave quarters/kitchen.

Front Royal is the northern entrance to the spectacular, 105-mile, Skyline Drive that runs through Shenandoah National Park. Here you can hike the Appalachian Trail and take in scenic vistas.

The Shenandoah received its name, “ClearEyed Daughter of the Stars,” from a Native American legend. The first nonindigenous people to view the valley were English settlers in 1716 and within 20-years immigrants, mainly from PA, moved into the region. They followed an established Indian path that they named the Great Wagon Road. A Native presence is still seen there in the Monocan Village and Living History Exhibit. http://www. lexingtonvirginia.com

The first written evidence of Natural Bridge is in 1759 and the formation was fully documented by French scientists in the 1770s. George Washington surveyed the area in 1750 and visitors can still see where he carved his name in the rock. It is designated one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

www.naturalbridgeva.com

Thomas Jefferson’s patent was registered in July of 1774. He paid 20-shillings, $24,675.70, for 157-acres of land and constructed a 2-room log dwelling in 1802 and left a black man, Patrick Henry, as manager. Henry was given land and a cabin by Jefferson and he lived there as manager until his 1829 death.

In 1831 22-year-old Cyrus McCormick invented a mechanical reaper that cut, threshed and bundled grain using horsepower. Prior to his reaper it took one man one day to harvest 3-acres. With a mechanical reaper it took 1-hour per acre. In 1834 he was granted a patent. He moved his operation to Chicago in 1847 and in 1851 his invention was recognized with a medal and became internationally famous. Tours of the original McCormick Farm are free, self-guided and provide access to the 1822 family home, gristmill, blacksmith shop, museum and workshop.

The Frontier Culture Museum is an absolute must if you are in the area. It is located in Staunton. This outstanding complex brings to life through demonstrations, outdoor reconstructions, live interpretations, and the ethnic farmsteads from which the cultures that settled the Valley came. The compounds represented, West Africa, England, Germany, Ireland, Native America and Virginia, are authentic and include homes, work areas and outbuildings. www. frontiermuseum.org

Lexington was founded in 1778. The town was once known as Gilbert Campbell’s Ford but was renamed in honor of the village in Massachusetts where an early Revolutionary battle and all the streets except one, Main, were named after Virginia’s Revolutionary heroes. www.Lexingtonvirginia.com

Thomas Jonathan “Stonewall” Jackson became legendary during the Civil. He graduated from West Point in 1846 and served in the US Army. In 1851 he took a professorship at the Virginia Military Institute (VMI) in Lexington teaching philosophy. In 1854 his first wife, Elinor Junkin, died in childbirth and he emancipated her slaves. In 1857 he wed Mary Anna Morrison and the following year he purchased a 2-story brick, Federal-style home in Lexington. They owned 6 slaves, Albert, Amy, Hetty, her 2 sons and Emma, a 4-year-old girl.

The 45-minute house tour includes period furnishings and personal possessions. Of particular note are a piano purchased for his wife, bedroom furniture from his first marriage and his framed diploma on his study wall. In 1861 a messenger delivered the order for Jackson to march VMI cadets to Richmond. He would not return alive. The home, listed on the National Register of Historic Places, has been fully restored. http:// www.stonewalljackson.org