Annual Meeting to be Held at Historic Courthouse

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Board of Directors and Membership of the Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society will take place on Sunday, October 26^th at 2:00 pm. We will discuss the past year in review, obtain an overview of our new accessions acquired this year, review new exhibits that were installed, and look at our budget and financial information.

Upon completion, we will move to the downstairs foyer of the historic building and tour the newly completed exhibit on the American Revolution in Middlesex, “On the Road to Freedom.” Our Executive Director, Holly Horton, will guide this special tour and discuss our local soldiers and residents and the parts that they played in the unfolding conflict.

As a special treat for our member attendees, we will additionally have a special viewing of the original land grant documents given to two patriots as payment for their service during the war. These documents were recently conserved through a generous grant from Preservation Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula and copies of them are included as part of the public exhibit “On the Road to Freedom.”

During the calendar year 2024, the Middlesex County Museum was gifted two original land grants from the late 1700s. Both were signed by the seated governor of the Commonwealth at the time as awards to two different residents of the county of Middlesex. Both were awards for service preformed during the American Revolution. One is signed by Virginia Governor Patrick Henry to Abraham Chapline in 1785 for 330 acres for land that is now in Kentucky. The second is signed by Virginia Governor Beverley Randolph to Ralph Wormley, junr. in 1790 for 200 acres in what is still Middlesex.

These documents help to illustrate the depth and relevance of our organization’s collections and the importance of our continued focus on our mission: to collect, exhibit, and discuss the history of Middlesex County and the varied roles our past residents have played in its development.