Maury The Life in the Flow
Maury The Life in the Flow
Featured Stories
Who We Are
Welcome
to The Maury: Life in the Flow, a regional magazine homing in on life in the Rockbridge area. Beloved by locals and visitors, the Maury River symbolizes the beauty of Rockbridge. Washington and Lee alumni, VMI Keydets, and locals all adore the place they call home.
Linking the interests of the area, the content of our magazine will leave no stones unturned. With features ranging from outdoor activities to local art and the people of the area, The Maury offers something to all residents of the Rockbridge community.
But you don’t have to live here to enjoy our content.
Anyone who has ever laid eyes on the Maury remembers its natural beauty. They, too, will appreciate the content we’ve cultivated for them as we display our admiration for the area while focusing on the future. Whether you are able to dip your toes in the Maury or are hundreds of miles away, our magazine will serve as an immersive experience for all. Alongside capturing the enchanting scenery, our magazine will tell you how to preserve the belle we know as the Rockbridge area. By staying in the current with us, sustainability will feel like intimacy.
A Letter from the Editor
Thisfour-week spring term course has invented six magazines since 2014. Under deadline pressure, the first four classes named and designed and filled prototypes titled Town & Gown (for Southern college towns), Valley Dish (homegrown food in the Virginia valleys), Hops & Vine (craft beer and vineyards in the same geography) and Daytripper (same area, quick trips).
Last spring, the pandemic sent students away and canceled the highlight of this course, a three-day trip to New York to talk with magazine people. Our prototype then was an online-only publication for finding silver linings, targeting anywhere in the world, Six Feet Together: Creatively Filling the Space Between Us.
This time we were back on campus, coming out of a long, shadowy experience that W&L President Will Dudley had urged us to use for “self-cultivation.” Life was returning, but changed. We found ourselves looking at our surroundings with new eyes. What a spring we’ve had, as bright as paint and more full of birdsong than we ever noticed before. And what a place this is, surrounded by mountains, with a river running through it. The Maury concentrates on a geography more narrow than any of the magazine ideas mentioned above, and aims at an audience as these students might be if they returned here after a life in the big cities. It felt like coming home.
But the narrowing and the self-reflecting brought a discovery. A magazine is a community, and it feels as if this small place could sustain a community around one that celebrates its beauty, history and future. This seems especially true as we face the wider world and how it is changing. Here, we explore sustainable sources of food and energy, resilient community, and a deep past feeding a better future. Like the Maury River, confined to this quiet little county, these ideas and feelings flow outward into the oceans of the world.
— Doug Cumming, Ph.D.
Enjoy the Flow
By James Goettee
Kayaking Faves
Among outdoor adventures in the beautiful valleys of western Virginia, kayaking has always been a local favorite. In Rockbridge County, the Maury offers a challenging and intimate kayaking experience. But the dignified James, which meanders into the county in the southwest and picks up the Maury’s waters in the southeast, offers good kayaking too.
You can plan your kayaking excursion on your own or with the help of a local kayaking outfitter. Planning a trip can be complicated, but an outfitter will assist with logistics. Life jackets, kayaks, paddles, dry bags, and any other gear imaginable is provided. A kayak instructor will enthusiastically transport you and a well-loved, sturdy kayak to the launching point where you begin your adventure and, when finished, back to your car.
Twin River Outfitters in Buchanan ($38 per trip) and Wilderness Canoe Company in Natural Bridge Station ($35-40 per trip) are the local go-to outfitters for kayaking rentals or guides.
James Dick, the longtime Director of Outdoor Education at Washington and Lee, has provided us with his favorite kayaking routes along the James and Maury.
James River
Springwood to Buchanan — A 5-mile trip with a few Class I rapids. Short but fun afternoon trip appropriate for beginners.
Buchanan to Arcadia — A 6-mile trip with Class III rapids. Perfect for beginners looking for more of a challenge.
Maury River
Rockbridge Baths to Alone Mill — An 8-mile trip with Class I - III rapids. Recommended for intermediate paddlers and not to be underestimated by beginners.
Bean’s Bottom to Jordan Point Park — A 2.5-mile trip with Class I rapids. Suitable for beginner paddlers and for those seeking a tranquil day floating the Maury in innertubes.
Rail to Trail
By Sean Doherty
The next “Chessie Trail Marathon, 5K, & Marathon Relay” will be held on October 30, 2021
Chessie Fun Facts
The Chessie Nature Trail, a former canal tow path and railbed of the C&O Railroad, runs along the Maury River from East Lexington to Buena Vista. While owned by VMI, the trail is maintained and improved by Friends of the Chessie Trail. The organization’s goal is to “foster strong communications among Chessie Trail stakeholders, to advocate for the community’s vision for the Trail, and to organize citizen support for a well-maintained and safe Trail.”
Friends of the Chessie Trail operates partially on tax dollars and fees from educational programs or scavenger hunts, but largely from its “Chessie Trail Marathon, 5K, & Marathon Relay” every Halloween weekend. An annual event since 2018, the race typically draws over 300 participants from various states and raises thousands of dollars through donations and race fees. Funds raised from the race will be utilized to continue trail improvements, education, sponsored walks and scavenger hunts, said Becky McKenzie, the group’s treasurer.
While the Covid-19 pandemic cut down on gatherings by Friends of the Chessie Trail, it also demonstrated the trail’s value. Chris Wise, a committee chair, said that an infrared camera positioned along the trail averaged a 150% year-to-date increase in usage throughout the pandemic. The trail that once connected this frontier to the East is a relaxing escape – a source of physical and mental health for the community.
1. The Chessie Nature Trail, which runs about 7.2 miles along the Maury River in Rockbridge County, follows the path of the former Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad beds.
2. Prior to the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, the James River and Kanawha Company attempted to use the trail as the towpath of its canal. Likewise, it was the donation of stock in the James River Company that gave Washington and Lee University its first namesake, Washington.
3. Remains of the failed canal system exist along the path today, such as Reid’s lock, which was burned during the Civil War by Union troops.
4. At least 43 species of mammals have been seen on or near the trail.
5. The next goal for The Friends of the Chessie Trail is to repair the South River Bridge and improve the area by installing a parking lot with a federal grant.
Globowl
Think Global, Eat Local
By Becket Waters
The idea of local farm-to-table vegetarian fare, served with sustainable practices, would seem a natural fit for Lexington. But Lauren McCaughrin, who grew up in Lexington, brought the idea as an import from the steel and asphalt world of big cities. The daughter of two retired Washington and Lee professors, McCaughrin spent 15 years in LA, mostly budgeting Hollywood movies. She started a reusable bag company in response to the plastic bag ban in LA, then moved to New York.
Now she’s back home and has opened Globowl Café in the alley sized space formerly occupied by Mano Taqueria on W. Nelson. With almost all vegetarian or vegan options on the menu, Globowl Cafe is focused on “Going Green” by providing customers with primarily compostable takeout ware and having a local farmer pick up the compost every day, minimizing waste. Any leftovers each day McCaughrin tries to donate to community food programs. McCaughrin says she wants to be part of the Lexington community again, like when she was sixteen. This time around, she’s serving traditional empanadas ($4) or vegan salads ($10) to members of the college community who drop by for takeout or enjoy lunch at one of her small blue-tiled sidewalk tables.
(Vegetarian) Baja $12
(Vegan) Green Goddess Harvest Salad $10
(Vegetarian) Mediterranean Falafel Salad $10
Farmers Market
A Tiny Tent City, Filling a Hole
By Clare Hotze
Atthe Lexington Farmer’s Market on a Wednesday morning, you are outside in the open air, seeing your next door neighbors, close friends, or even the pastor from your church. It is like a tiny city within a small town. This is a producer-only market, meaning all qualified vendors must grow their own produce. Vegetables, baked goods, remedies and a variety of floral arrangements are all nestled under white shade canopies in McCrum’s Parking Lot. There is something for everyone here.
Mitch Wapner, the robust fellow you meet in the Paradox Farm booth (from “pair o’ docs,” he and his wife being veterinarians) just celebrated his twelfth year as the market manager. The one-acre of intensive farming on his 125 acres of land has been Certified Naturally Grown, that is, “organic,” since 2009. Week after week, he sees how much Lexingtonians love the market, especially as they come out of the pandemic. “If it wasn’t here, there would be a hole.”
Water, Color
Gabriela Gomez-Misserian studies themes of current and community in Goshen Pass
By Todd Echols
While she loved drawing and painting in high school, Washington and Lee senior Gabriela Gomez-Misserian never thought she would study studio art in college. But Professor Leigh Ann Beaver’s course on drawing during her sophomore year and encouragement from mentors like Professor Kathleen Olsen-Janjic helped Gabriela find her calling.
“They saw a lot in me that I couldn’t see in myself at the time.”
She dove into studio art over the next two years, including five weeks in Italy devoted to drawing and painting. For her senior thesis, a months-long project required of all senior studio art majors, she was inspired by Goshen Pass on the Maury.
Goshen Pass gave her a strong sense of community connecting those she loved with the peaceful landscape itself. She had swum there with best friends her junior year, and continued that when she moved into Lexington last June, in the midst of the pandemic.
“During COVID, it brought a lot of happiness to us.”
Her study of the water at Goshen Pass involved frequent visits to the river to make sketches and take photos. Working in watercolor, she would keep her brushstrokes loose and flowing to capture the natural movements of the water. She also experimented with embroidery and thread, creating outlines and echoes of water shapes. The final exhibition, titled Current, is a series of beautiful works on paper that playfully overlap to present the natural movements and energy of the river. The exhibition was on display in the Staniar Gallery at Washington and Lee’s Lenfest Center for the Arts from the end of March to the end of May.
“I try to capture the intrinsic light and natural magic of our surroundings with a steadfast attention to color and form,” Gabriela says. “I’m not an artist who is pulled toward stark realism. That’s just not me. For me, my work, down to the brushstroke or pen line, is highly expressive and reflective of not only the environment, but also myself.”
Learning from the River
Spectrum Design drew motfis from the Maury to redesign Rockbridge County’s only remaining middle school
By Katelyn Gamble
When the Rockbridge County school system consolidated its two middle schools nearly 10 years ago, Spectrum Design of Roanoke was charged with turning the Maury River Middle School building from its dull 1950s brick high school origins into something special. The designers tapped deep into the name – Maury River – to create a fluid, post-modern work of art. The award-winning design features stained glass bricks, suspended steel strips in wave patterns, a huge window wall with a translucent photograph of the Maury River and undulating interiors the colors of river and sky. Lenore Weiss, principal project manager, said the main goal was to incorporate the river as well as its namesake, Matthew Fontaine Maury. The man’s nickname, “Pathfinder of the Seas,” is featured on an inside wall. The design is both functional and educational. Floors feature a model of a glucose molecule, a model of the solar system and a music scale. Rarely does a public school building give such a feeling of being buoyed along on an easy current.
Maury: the River, the Man, ... the Problem
Opinion by Carly Snyder
To
many, the Maury River is nothing more than a river, a reminder of the undeniable beauty of the Rockbridge area. As we began to create our magazine, we thought what better to symbolize that beauty than the river that runs through the heart of it? But like most names in this area, the name Maury symbolizes more than a river that college kids have an affinity for tubing or kayaking.
Originally the North River, the name of the Maury River was changed by the Virginia General Assembly in 1945 to honor Matthew Fontaine Maury. Maury left an official position with Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, after the Civil War and came to Lexington in 1868 to round out his career as the head of the Department of Natural Philosophy, that is, physics, at the Virginia Military Institute.
Like his close companion Robert E. Lee, Maury too had important ties to the Confederacy. Maury also had some rather odd ties to the cause of slavery.
Today, just as many separate Lee’s identity as a Confederate general and his educational contributions to Washington and Lee University, Maury is often seen as two individuals: a man with ties to the unforgivable crime of slavery and, the more popular of his two identities, Pathfinder of the Seas.
Colonel Keith Gibson, director of Virginia Military Institute’s museums, recalls his time in the Navy when Maury was the name printed on all charts of coastal waters. “This is based on the scientific findings of Maury” is engraved in Gibson’s mind, reinforcing his belief that Maury was the “Einstein of the 19th century.”
And Maury was that. After he fell from a stagecoach and sustained a leg injury that prevented him from climbing the ranks within the U.S. Navy, Maury took a desk job at the Naval Observatory, where he would later become Superintendent. There, he collected information on wind patterns and the currents of the ocean for each season. With this information, as well as his personal journals from various sea voyages, Maury developed what would become major trade routes by ocean, thus “making the world a smaller place,” as Gibson views it.
The Navy isn’t the only place where one learns about Maury. In her time at Colorado College and later the School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami, Professor Lisa Greer also learned about Maury’s contributions.
Some twenty years later, Greer would learn Maury contributed more than his scientific reputation acknowledged.
After the defeat of the Confederacy, Maury, a son of old-line Virginia, wasn’t ready to leave behind a cotton-producing society based on slavery. In fact, Maury tried to continue the economic arrangement of the Antebellum South in Brazil, where he encouraged American slave-owners to send their slaves.
Greer and her colleagues in the geology department at Washington and Lee University recently formed a cohort at W&L for a national program called URGE dedicated to unlearning racism in the geosciences. As part of the program, the professors in the group are assigned reading materials and have discussions and presentations on notable figures in the geosciences. When Maury was featured in a “eye-opening” presentation, Greer learned about Maury’s views concerning slavery. Although Maury never owned a slave, he was responsible for developing a notion of transplanting slave-dependent cotton production out of the United States to Latin American lands.
“It was hard growing up in my academic life thinking he was a pioneer and had done good things,” said Greer, whose university is holding its breath to learn whether the governing board will remove “Lee” from its name. “But we can’t just ignore this anymore. It’s not just Robert E. Lee.”
And if it isn’t just Lee, the question arises: Should we rename, or at least discuss renaming, a river named for Maury? Gibson doesn’t think so.
“He was a typical person of his time,” said Gibson. “Decisions made without reflection can become decisions we regret.”
Gibson believes one such regret will be the “surprising” removal of a statue of Maury on Memorial Avenue in Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy. Maury Lake, in Newport News, Virginia, was renamed The Mariners’ Lake in 2020.
Asone who supports the removal of “Lee” from the name of my own university, I also support the renaming of a river in which I enjoy swimming. Perhaps it should be named after Marie Tharp.
While renaming the Maury after Tharp is unlikely, given she has no connection to the area, it is an interesting thought experiment nonetheless. In the same male-dominated field as Maury, Tharp was responsible for revealing the complex landscape of the ocean bottom and the rift valley along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Her contributions changed our model for how the earth evolved as she inspired scientists to accept and shift their focus toward plate tectonics. Yet, despite the fact that she published her first map of the North Atlantic two years before others published papers on plate tectonics, Tharp’s name fails to appear on the documents. For years, her work went unnoticed. Greer, who also supports the renaming of Washington and Lee, never had a female professor in her time in undergraduate and graduate studies. Naturally, she wishes she had seen more female role models like Tharp in the geosciences, rather than what she calls a “deification” of Maury.
Why not rename the river after a woman who created the first map of the ocean floor? Tharp’s contributions are arguably just as notable as Maury’s, but without the stain of trying to perpetuate slavery.
Upper Left: Matthew Fontaine Maury, 1860s
Upper Right: Marie Tharp, 1960s
Lower Right: Marie Tharp, 2001
Holding Up Solar
Renewable Energy Languishes as Regulators Chew the Cud
Opinion by Dennis Hull
Dark silhouettes of grazing cattle speckle the lush pastures of the Shenandoah Valley, with endless rows of cornstalks swaying in unison to the supple spring breeze. It’s something of an escape from the chaos of modern life, a place where time almost seems to move slower.
But for Rockbridge County, a rural area that treasures the beauty of its landscapes, there’s no simple way to reduce the greenhouse gases that are slowly baking the planet. Even as the cost of building solar power as a renewable energy source continues to drop and the technology improves, resistance to change dominates the conversation.
Indeed, a proposal to build 15,000 solar modules – enough to power 1,000 homes – was stuck for months in an arduous regulatory process under the dull murmurings of the Rockbridge Planning Commission. The commissioners’ concern had nothing to do with money or logistics. In fact, the project is privately funded and owned by Dynamic Energy Solutions, with a 25-year lease planned for a tract near Fairfield Elementary.
No, local officials have just one major concern: appearances. Can a collection of huge glass panels – smooth and slick as they are – ever hope to match the beauty of a scenic countryside? The idea that solar fields are an unseemly blight on the landscape is a critical aspect of their discussion, since the proposed array will sit between a state highway and busy Interstate 81. Screening will go up in front of the panels, but the type of trees to plant became an obsession for the Rockbridge Planning Commission, which spent half of its monthly meeting picking out species.
Politicians themselves, though, are not the only hang up. In a county with a bovine population larger than its human counterparts, cattle are naturally a top priority for farmers – except those in the right location to make more money leasing land for solar power. Yes, cows are king in Rockbridge County, and local officials know it. They pay close attention to the Rockbridge Farm Bureau, the influential organization of local farmers that opposes the Fairfield solar proposal. The Bureau hopes to establish a slew of new regulations before giving the green light, such as “well-crafted zoning ordinances” that would only further complicate the solar field approval process.
Yet it was regulations like those that sparked the aesthetic debate in the first place. Buried deep within a 221-page regulatory document, you’ll discover special county rules for projects in the “Tourism Corridor,” which includes a nearly quarter-mile strip of land along scenic highways like Route 11. Since the solar field would sit right alongside that road, the county dictates strict requirements to shield it from view before any development can begin – including, at minimum, a 30-foot “landscape strip.”
Images above are of the proposed solar farm in Fairfield, with fictional trees and solar array overlayed on the landscape.
The goal of these rules, and of the ensuing debate over screening, has nothing to do with facilitating progress. No, as county ordinance 1302.06 states quite well, the county merely hopes “to maintain and preserve the rural and scenic atmosphere of Rockbridge County and the desired landscape character for the major streets and highways.” In fact, the Tourism Corridor Overlay Board exists for that very purpose. According to the board’s guidelines, their standards are strikingly subjective: “It is the intent of the TCO Board to encourage new development that complements the surrounding architecture and cultural setting in appreciation of the unique quality of life in Rockbridge. The desire is to blend the new with the old in an aesthetically pleasing way.” But without that board’s approval, projects like the Fairfield solar array can never come to fruition.
The fact that local authorities may wield so much power over renewable energy projects is worrying, particularly since the regulatory code explicitly requires the preservation of scenery. Though this is only the third solar array to find its way to Rockbridge County, more proposals are certain to come. And if just a few officials can derail a massive, privately funded energy project, simply because they believe a sea of glass panels is “incompatible” with a natural landscape, then this county’s prospects for a carbon-free future are in serious peril.
Take the example of Rockbridge Planning Commission member Melissa Hennes, who voted against the solar proposal this week. “I’ve been thinking about the benefits,” she said. “Ten percent of a power bill is not worth what we’re giving up. I don’t like the way it looks, turning prime farmland into 29 acres of metal.” For Hennes, “the way it looks” is by far the most important consideration, outweighing both the benefits of renewable energy and an incredible opportunity for residents to save 10% on their electric bills. Terrifyingly, if just two of Hennes’s colleagues had the same opinion, the solar array would be history.
For those with an interest in preserving the status quo, state and local regulations are the perfect buttress against progress. What better way to impose your vision for a community than by edict from Richmond, Roanoke, or even Lexington? The argument often goes that we need more government to transition to a sustainable future, but here, the bureaucracy of local government creates more obstacles than solutions for renewable energy. Political power can be a fickle tool, and a dangerous one if left in the wrong hands.
When a private company offers to build and maintain enough solar panels to power a thousand homes at no cost to the state, while simultaneously advancing the transition to renewables, planners should have a sense of urgency to approve the project as quickly as possible. Instead, it has sat in limbo for months while commissioners wrangle over their favorite trees. Even now that the Rockbridge Planning Commission has recommended a special exception permit in a 3-1 vote, the project still requires approval from four additional boards and agencies to finally move forward.
Climate change is no idle threat. For all its natural beauty (and impressive bovine demographic), Rockbridge will have no free pass from the harsh consequences of our rising global temperature. The future of this rural community does not depend on our ability to create more rules and regulations, or on the prettiness of a country vista, but on the willingness of politicians to stand aside and allow change to finally happen.
Heating Up
Can we protect our forests in a changing climate?
By Nathan Cox
OnFriday, April 30, in the Goshen Pass area of Rockbridge County, a wildfire raged. Local volunteer firefighters worked in coordination with state and federal foresters to contain the blaze and to protect threatened properties. Nathan Ramsey, chief of Rockbridge County Fire-Rescue, says natural conditions made the fire worse that day. “The winds were extremely intense. We measured at one point 57 miles an hour wind gusts on that particular day, so it was driving the fire pretty rapidly.”
Chief Ramsey says his volunteers would have been overwhelmed without help from others. “We are fortunate in this area to be able to have Virginia Department of Forestry officials and U.S. Forestry officials that live here who responded quickly and immediately started addressing the wildland part of [the fire].” The volunteer fire departments focused on private land and were able to make evacuations in a timely manner and protect property.
In the past several years there have been an increasing number of high-profile forest fires in the United States. Fires such as those in southern California, the pacific northwest and the Smokey Mountains of Tennessee have been unusually destructive and are often linked to the changing conditions of global warming.
In the recent forest fire near Goshen Pass, the collaboration of volunteer firefighters and foresters worked admirably to contain the blaze and by that Monday, rain put out the remainder of the fire. “When it comes to wildland fires, the biggest thing is to contain it,” Ramsey says. “You really can’t extinguish it: Mother Nature handles most of the extinguishment.”
Wildfires of this type are not all that unusual in our region. A nearly identical forest fire broke out in Goshen around Easter three years ago.
With this frequency, those tasked with protecting our forests seem confident and prepared. Ramsey said the community is very aware that these types of things that can happen. “The fire departments do a very good job of protecting the private property and maintaining that area.”
Patricia Nylander, senior area forester at the Virginia Department of Forestry for the area, said the fire prevention infrastructure was ready. “We were having some dry spells and we knew with that wind event coming earlier in the week and with the forecast that there was going to be a very good chance of a fire no matter what. We actually had some pre-positioned equipment, and we had some part-time staff kind of on standby that Friday.”
In 2016, in Sevier County, Tennessee, a vicious wildfire killed 14 people and caused millions in property damage. The terrain of Sevier County is almost identical to Rockbridge, so what prevents a disaster of that scale from happening here?
Chief Ramsey argues that the devastation was so widespread in Tennessee because the forested area there was heavily populated and commercialized. “Fortunately [the Goshen Pass] area does not have a lot of private property close by.” Nylander, the forester, agreed. “The things that tend to lead to those types of fires are very complex and where you have houses involved, we are having to deal with what we call the wildland urban interface.”
That almost happened with the recent Goshen fire. “We actually had a lot of homes that the fire was making its way towards so we could certainly have incidences where fire could damage structures and threaten homes here in Virginia.”
Photos courtesy of Mary Woodson.
Both Chief Ramsey and Patricia Nylander offer ways in which the residents of Rockbridge County can better protect their homes and the community at large from wildfires.
• Clean your roofs of any highly combustible materials such as dried leaves.
• Make sure that access is wide enough for fire apparatus to get through and then the trees are cut back to allow for large vehicles to enter.
• Remain vigilant. If you see smoke or smell smoke and if you do not know where it is from, report it so that it can get checked out and investigated.
Nylander understands why people like to live in the wild woods of this area. “They like the solitude and the quiet.” But they should remember to keep “a defensible space around their home,” and rake their leaves.
Beneath the Surface
Appreciating the Jordan’s Point Dam — and its Removal
By Grainger Reeves
Forover a century, an engineered mass of concrete, iron, rubble, and wood stood proudly between the Maury River’s banks in East Lexington. I never considered what the Jordan’s Point Dam actually looked like before its removal. Its foundational contents – man’s commodities embedded within nature’s flow – were hidden underwater. The dam looked more like a waterfall than anything else. From the Route 11 bridge, I would admire how House Mountain towered over the rolling hills of trees and how the Maury’s brown flatwater crashed as white foam into the greenish-blue river before me, continuing underneath the bridge, meandering eastward through the other half of Rockbridge County. To me, the dam created ideal floating conditions. Not until it was gone, and I sat down with some local experts, did I see the dam as more than this.
The Jordan’s Point Dam has long had a special place in the hearts of locals. Seth McCormick-Goodhart, a senior assistant in Special Collections at Washington and Lee, was kind enough to walk me through some old photos of the dam. A descendant of the family of Rockbridge County’s famous industrialist, Cyrus McCormick, Seth taught me about the dam’s significance to Jordan’s Point, the longtime center of industry and transportation for the Rockbridge area. He spoke lovingly of the flatwater above the dam, known locally as the “Mill Pond.” It was clear how much memory and rich history the dam had for the Rockbridge community. For a long time, families and students swam in the Mill Pond, swung from ropes in the trees, and relaxed in inner tubes without being swept away by a free-flowing river – until the drowning of a local high schooler, Charles Volpe, over the dam in April 2006. VMI had used this water to train cadets and W&L had used it for a crew team. Having lived in Lexington for only four years, I too miss the high water levels that a good float down the Maury requires. No matter your stance on the dam’s removal, it is easy to appreciate its past. But appreciating the past does not mean you cannot support the future. Seth, an avid angler, embraces the new, free-flowing Maury.
With the removal of Jordan’s Point Dam, the Maury River is healthier and supporting more diverse ecosystems. I spoke with Louise Finger, a stream restoration biologist for the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources who also led the charge for removing Jordan’s Point Dam. She considered the dam unnecessary and harmful to the river’s hydrology, sediment transport, oxygenation and temperature. When she saw the confused look on my face, Louise walked me through some before-and-after dam removal photos. Simply put, the dam’s flatwater environment had allowed filamentous algae to cover rocks, leading to a lack of clean cobbles for fish spawning and aquatic-insect attachment. Louise expects the dam’s removal to promote recolonization of species that once inhabited the Maury River. Smallmouth bass have begun to return. Caddisfly larvae are surviving at higher rates. Because of the cyclical nature of ecosystems, Louise also hopes some mussel species will return to the river. Mussels filter renewed sediment to promote cleaner water, benefitting other animal species. A healthier array of ecosystems in the Maury will create a positive feedback loop. We are seeing cleaner water, larger and more diverse fish populations, and healthier trees and animals. Removing the dam began all these processes.
To ensure the Maury’s health, however, we must do more. Louise and the Virginia DWR will continue monitoring the river’s health and pinpointing where improvements can be made. Robert Humston, a biology professor at W&L, is using radio telemetry to track movement of smallmouth bass upstream and downstream of the former dam. We are not all scientists, but there are big things we can do as a community and little things we can do as individuals… and they all add up. David Harbor, a geology professor at W&L, suggested a few ways that we can help out on a small scale: buy local and responsibly-sourced produce, report signs of erosion/sedimentation along the river, and pick up trash in and around the river.
Beneath the Maury’s surface, one finds the remains of a dam and the signs of ecological repair. From atop the Route 11 bridge, my view no longer includes brown water creeping into a waterfall look-a-like. Instead, I see a cleaner river and two kayakers paddling, making memories, traversing the waves of a former dam that had once impeded their travel.
Underwater image of algae growth upstream of dam before its removal.
Underwater image of algae growth upstream of dam before its removal.
Smallmouth bass eggs on the bed substrate following dam’s removal. Same location as image to the left.
Caddisfly larvae attached to cobbles in the riffle following the dam’s removal. Same location as image to the left.
photos provided by Seth McCormick-Goodhart, Washington and Lee Special Collections.
Belfield
The Finest Place to Spend Your COVID-19 Quarantine
By Dennis Hull
Nestled in a pristine grove of trees overlooking a quaint wooden gazebo, the Belfield House is a coveted spot for W&L students in quarantine. Once the home of Washington and Lee’s celebrated dean Frank J. Gilliam, the expensively restored mansion features a unique architectural style, encapsulated by exquisite, hand-carved woodwork. Those lucky enough to be assigned to Belfield enjoyed something of a two-week vacation, isolated in luxury from the chaos of the world outside.
Yet with a student body of more than two thousand, the vast majority of undergraduates forced into quarantine never had the chance to walk up Belfield’s winding stone staircase or sit by the fireplace in the wood-paneled living room. Instead, most students spent their days of isolation at W&L’s plain brick Baker Hall or its neighboring Davis, with their shared bathrooms and surprising lack of amenities, or accompanied by bugs and dingy bedsheets at the Econolodge motel.
Last October, though, one W&L junior managed to beat the system.
After learning he was a close contact of a student who had tested positive, Ryan Zimmerman packed his car full of essentials and prepared to move out of his townhouse in the Third Year Village. But once he discovered he was assigned to Baker, Zimmerman immediately began sending emails and making calls to administrators, desperate to remedy his misfortune. The stories he had heard from his Baker-bound friends were not encouraging.
Zimmerman registered his dissatisfaction. “I thought that Baker was a bad decision for me personally,” he said.
Kip Brooks, the school’s Covid Coordinator at the time, allowed Zimmerman to move into the Econolodge, an affordable motel in a bleak part of Lexington where W&L held open dozens of rooms last fall for quarantined students. But Zimmerman quickly discovered that the living conditions were far from ideal. “It was kind of disgusting,” Zimmerman said. “Whenever I showered, the bathroom flooded, and there were bugs all over the walls and the ceilings.”
What really shocked him, though, was the strange man who knocked on his door at 4:30 a.m.
“I-81 is a big human trafficking route,” Zimmerman said, speculating that the man who stood outside his room may have had sinister intentions.
When Zimmerman tested positive for COVID-19 two days after arriving at the Econolodge, he emailed Brooks one more time – and finally got permission to move into the Belfield House, where he lived alone for the next ten days. Though his symptoms were debilitating at first, Zimmerman quickly began to enjoy his new life of luxury, despite the pervading solitude.
Strangers showing up at his door were not a concern.
“Once I started to feel better, I went to class outside on the patio,” Zimmerman recalled. Landscapers frequently arrived during his Zoom sessions to attend to the well-kept gardens on the property, originally designed by the prominent landscape architect Charles Gillette in the early 20th century. Complete with original plantings and delicate English boxwoods, the gardens make for a tranquil study spot – at least, more so than the plastic table-desks of Baker Hall.
Zimmerman’s unusual experience was made possible in part because of the underdeveloped system initially used by W&L administrators to assign quarantine housing. Though W&L later used a hightech digital system to manage isolation beds, during the first few months of the fall semester, administrators had little more than an Excel spreadsheet to track housing assignments.
Covid Care Coordinator Mairin Wood said the switch to digital infrastructure in December created a streamlined management experience that didn’t exist during Zimmerman’s time in quarantine – a much-needed improvement.
“With the volume we’ve seen this spring compared to the fall, if we didn’t have that system, it would have been really, really rough,” she said. With the ability to see the status of every available isolation bed across Lexington, it got much easier for administrators to coordinate meal delivery, implement short-term class adjustments, and efficiently assign students to quarantine housing.
As the system was upgraded, options for housing also expanded dramatically. Dr. Jane Horton, the W&L Student Health Director, said that the Covid Care Team tried not to assign students to the Econolodge unless they have no other options.
By March, students were quarantining in off-campus housing rented by the school. Many of these were rented from alumni – much nicer than W&L housing or the Econolodge. But no longer would students glimpse the splendor that students enjoyed in the 1950s and 1960s when Dean GillIiam would invite them, after church, to have tea with him in Belfield.
Ryan may be the last student to enjoy the privilege of actually living there.
A Morning on the Maury
By Jens Ames
“Pop.” Breaking the silence, a fish slapped the water as it devoured my fly. I raised my rod, setting the hook. After pulling my line in for a few seconds, I hear “That’s the biggest sunfish I’ve ever seen!” While not the prized smallmouth bass I hoped for, catching a large redbreast sunfish was the start of a terrific day on the Maury River.
Arriving in Lexington last August felt bittersweet. I knew that the semester would be different than the Washington and Lee experience I had grown to love. Most notably for me, it was the first fall since sixth grade when I was not playing football. My roommates and I had more time than we knew what to do with. Our parents knew that college-aged boys having too much free time could be a recipe for disaster, so they produced a plan. My roommate and his father fly fish, and they had hired a fishing guide named Matt Miles the previous year. They called Matt and planned a trip for that first Saturday morning in September.
My roommates and I arrived at Jordan’s Point Park around 7 a.m. and were soon on the water. As the beginner, I received a boat of my own with our other guide, Mike Rennie, who could dedicate his full attention to me. While I had floated and swum in the Maury before, the early morning gave me a further appreciation for the river. The combination of thick fog and rising sun was mesmerizing.
The float began with a few bumps as we passed through the rapids where the Jordan’s Point Park dam sat for 120 years. The water quickly flattened, and I began to cast. The sun remained below the tree line, keeping the water dark. Evidently, the fish had been kept up all night by party music at the nearby Pole Houses and were sleeping it off. Mike began to doubt the fly he selected for my rod. Suddenly, my luck began to change. The neon fly disappeared under the surface. But I waited too long and lost the fish. While the smallmouth had gotten away, I was hooked on fly fishing.
The fish began to bite, and after a few misses, I quickly learned the timing of setting a hook with a fly rod. Bringing in my first catch of the day, Mike effortlessly removed the hook and put the fish back in the water. My fly quickly disappeared once again. I pulled in my line, and as the fish got close, Mike informed me the unfamiliar species was a rock bass, also known as a redeye. The appropriately named redeye, as Mike explained, appear similar to smallmouth bass but remain much smaller and have bloodshot eyes. Another catch, but not the fish I wanted.
As we floated down the Maury, Mike directed my casts in a soothing tone. Instructions such as “behind that log” or “to the right of the rock” guided my fly. Between casts, Mike made me feel like an old friend with his combination of small talk and fish stories. At other points, the quiet ripple of the river did the talking.
Shortly after catching the redeye, my bright green fly slipped under the water. Setting my hook, I felt stronger resistance than my previous catches. Finally, I had found a smallmouth. When I commented to Mike that the bass’s hesitation to take the bait surprised me, he remarked ,“Smallmouth are the smart cousins of largemouth.” Smallmouth are more cautious about what they eat, while largemouth attack anything they find. Although I missed the shock of when a largemouth devours a bait, the attention needed to land a “smallie” created more suspense, making the catch more rewarding.
After the first smallmouth, the fish truly came to life. Every few minutes, another fish was on the line. Hoots and hollers routinely came from the other boat as well, as my roommates landed numerous fish. Drifting under the I-81 bridge, I discovered the most interesting catch of the day. I pulled out a smallie whose dorsal fin was split in half by the talon of a hawk or some other bird of prey. After taking a quick stop to enjoy lunch on the bank, we pushed back off into the clear water.
With the sun high in the afternoon sky, the fish lurked deeper under the surface. To counter, Mike equipped me with an underwater streamer which imitated the swimming pattern of crayfish. I threw the streamer toward a formation of underwater rocks, and Mike coached me on using the streamer as we drifted toward the end of our trip. By the time we loaded the rafts in their trailers, we three anglers had caught 20 fish apiece, most of them smallmouth bass. We released them all. What I took away, that morning itself, was the keeper.
An Artist’s Homage to Rockbridge Baths
By Cage Tevis
Pierre Daura found peace beside the Maury River in Rockbridge Baths. The modernist Catalonian painter had seen enough war. He was taken away from his circle of artists in Paris in 1917 for mandatory military service in Spain. He later fought the fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He was wounded and after General Franco routed Daura’s side of the fight, was banished from Spain. He returned to Paris but seeing that the fascist tide was poised to spread across Europe, he fled to the United States.
Luckily, he was married to an aspiring artist who had come to Paris from an old-line Virginia family. Louise Blair’s mother owned Rockbridge Baths, the mineral springs that had drawn the well-to-do to the Rockbridge County village of that name in the 19th century. He and Louise Daura left Europe in 1939 and lived most of the rest of their lives in Lynchburg and Rockbridge Baths. The tranquility and beauty of his new home had a profound effect on Daura as a person and an artist. According to Karl Willers, chief curator of the Taubman Museum, Daura’s work in Virginia became softer and more experimental, at times a “free-floating celebration of color itself.” He was fascinated by the area’s natural beauty and the rural lives of his neighbors.
In Virginia, Daura was finally able to focus on his work, to “quit the gallery game,” according to Barbara Rothermel, director of the Daura Museum at the University of Lynchburg. He focused on his art and his family. His only departure from that was a brief stint teaching art at local colleges to put his daughter through school. Duara found a place mentoring local artists, including the folk painter Queena Stovall and a young Cy Twombly.
He died on January 1, 1976, and is buried next to his wife in the Bethesda Presbyterian Church cemetery in Rockbridge Baths.
Bottom Left: Pierre Daura, Golden Field and House Mountains, Rockbridge Baths, 1951-1971; Oil on canvas, 26 x 31 7/8 in. (66 x 81 cm). Collection of the Taubman Museum of Art, Gift of Martha Randolph Daura.
Top Left: Pierre Daura, Chicken Coop with Jump Mountain, Rockbridge Baths,1955-1970; Watercolor on paper, 14 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (38 x 56 cm). Collection of the Taubman Museum of Art, Gift of Martha Randolph Daura.
Top Right: Pierre Daura, Daura Garden, 1955-1970; Watercolor on paper, 14 15/16 x 22 1/16 in. (38 x 56 cm). Collection of the Taubman Museum of Art, Gift of Martha Randolph Daura.
Maury The Life in the Flow
A new quarterly magazine for preserving the special value of Rockridge County’s natural beauty, history, and culture in a changing world.
The Maury River begins in the forested hills and upland pastures and ends where it joins the James slicing through the Blue Ridge mountains. The river, contained entirely within our county and recently freed of a 120-year-old dam to recover its natural flow, is the center and the symbol for our magazine.
From the cover to the front departments to the features, the magazine will be filled with beautiful photography from all parts of the county. Its scope will range from a river-themed senior exhibit at W&L to the river themes in an award-winning redesign of Maury River Middle School. It will take you from the Lexington Farmer’s Market to a walk on the Chessie Trail.
Every issue will include fresh and interesting features on:
• Good local food – from organic farms to new restaurants.
• Local art and music – inspired by the heritage and sustainable elements of our communities.
• Outdoors – daytrips you can have on the river or in the mountains.
• Features – on people and places, their stories and outlook.
• Local ads – our ads will be beautiful and fitting for the local life we celebrate.