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This 18 minute video is a wonderful overview of General Puller’s military career. It starts with his birth home in West Point, but we know he loved living here in Saluda, VA. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ZK4ktQCmO0

Recently brought to the museum is a collection of advertising brochures discussing a variety of tourist offerings in Urbanna.

According to Encyclopedia Virginia, William Churchhill (1649–1710) served as a member of the House of Burgesses (1691–1692, 1704–1705) and the governor’s Council (1705–1710). He probably immigrated to Virginia as a merchant’s agent, importing merchandise and servants and exporting tobacco . Churchhill served in local and parish offices in Middlesex County, and was elected to the House of Burgesses in 1691. London officials named Churchhill to the Council in the commission of Edward Nott as governor in 1705. He attended the body’s meetings regularly until just before his death in 1710. Churchill was baptized in the parish of North Aston, Oxfordshire, England, on December 2, 1649. He was the youngest of eleven children of John Churchill and Dorothy Churchill (whose maiden name is not recorded), but little else is known of his family, early years, or education. Autographs indicate that he spelled his surname with a double h . Churchhill immigrated to Virginia, possibly when he was a young adult and in the capacity of a factor, or agent, for an established merchant. His name appears in Virginia records for the first time on February 1, 1675, when he witnessed a document in Middlesex County. On November 1 of that year Churchhill was appointed an undersheriff of the county. He held that office again in 1677. Churchhill practiced law in the colony. He may have continued to operate as a factor for London merchants for as long as a decade after arriving in Virginia, but he also hired his own factor to assist in collecting debts that other county residents owed him. His business consisted largely of importing merchandise and servants and exporting tobacco. His success in commerce led him into public office. Churchhill became a justice of the peace on October 14, 1687, and remained a member of the Middlesex County Court until 1705. He was placed on a committee in 1691 to acquire land for a courthouse in the proposed town of Urbanna and the next year purchased a half-acre lot there. Twelve years later, having firmly established his own trade connections, he opposed developing the new town. Within a decade after his arrival in Virginia, Churchhill began acquiring land in the lower end of Middlesex County and by the end of the century numbered among those with the largest landholdings in the county. In 1704 he owned 1,950 acres in Middlesex County, and at the time of his death he owned 2,280 acres in Richmond County as well. His Middlesex County plantation was known later, and perhaps during his lifetime, as Bushy Park. The inventory of his estate, returned four years after his death, recorded sixty-one slaves. Unlike some of his contemporaries who held slaves, Churchhill had some of his slaves’ children baptized . Churchhill married at least twice. A 1683 document records his wife’s first name, Mary, but not her maiden name. Churchhill’s wife was mentioned but not named in a document relating to an event in November 1693. It is not clear whether that instance referred to Mary Churchhill or to a second wife whose existence is not otherwise known; nor is it certain that later assertions that Churchhill had two daughters during the seventeenth century are correct. On October 5, 1703, Churchhill married Elizabeth Armistead Wormeley after executing a detailed marriage contract to secure the property that she and her children had inherited from her father, John Armistead , formerly a member of the governor’s Council, and her first husband, Ralph Wormeley, of Rosegill in Middlesex County, who had also been a member of the Council and secretary of the colony when he died in 1701. Their one son and two daughters included Priscilla Churchhill, who married first the namesake son of the land baron Robert “King” Carter and then John Lewis, a member of the Council. Following his marriage, Churchhill undertook the management of Rosegill, and his influence in the county and colony increased through his alliances with these prominent Virginia families . Churchhill won election to the House of Burgesses for the sessions that met in the springs of 1691 and 1692. He took part in drafting several bills and petitions, including a petition to the Crown for chartering a college in the colony, and served on the important committee that apportioned the public levy. Churchhill was elected to the House again in the spring of 1704 to fill a vacancy for the sessions that met in the spring of that year and in the spring of the following year. On April 20, 1705, noting a recommendation from Governor Francis Nicholson , officials in London added Churchhill’s name to the list of Council members in the commission of the new governor, Edward Nott. Churchhill took his seat on August 15, 1705, when Nott was sworn in as governor. Churchhill had a good attendance record as a member of the Council. He attended his last meeting in Williamsburg on October 27, 1710, shortly before his final, fatal illness. By 1706 Churchhill was a colonel in the county militia. He became a vestryman of Christ Church Parish, in Middlesex County, on June 2, 1684, and several times was appointed warden for the chapel in the lower part of the county. When he wrote his will, Churchhill left £100 to Christ Church Parish with the stipulation that the ministers preach quarterly sermons against atheism, irreligion, swearing, cursing, fornication, adultery, and drunkenness and concluded, “This I would have done forever.” He made another bequest to support the parish and two £10 bequests for the benefit of the poor in his native North Aston Parish and in Christ Church Parish in London. Churchhill dated his will on November 8, 1710, and died about two weeks later. Churchhill Grandson Robert Carter III (1728–1804) Robert Carter, also known as Robert Carter III and Councillor Carter, was a member of Virginia’s Council of State (1758–1776) who, after a religious conversion, emancipated more than five hundred of his enslaved African Americans. Heir to a fortune in land and slaves built by his grandfather, Robert “King” Carter , Carter studied law in London before returning to Virginia in 1751. His contemporaries remarked on his lack of learning and social grace, and he twice ran unsuccessfully for the House of Burgesses , receiving only a handful of votes each time. Through the influence of his wife’s uncle, Carter was appointed to the Council. In 1763, he served on the Virginia Committee of Correspondence , and in 1766 drafted the Council’s response to the Stamp Act. In 1777, he converted to evangelical Christianity, aligning himself with the Baptists. In 1788, he converted again, this time to the teachings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg. On August 1, 1791, he took the legal steps to gradually manumit, or free, more than 500 of his slaves, the largest individual emancipation before 1860. After the death of his wife, Carter moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where he died in 1804. https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/churchhill-william-1649-1710/ https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/carter-robert-1728-1804/ Robert Carter III of Nomini Hall, 1753 Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) Oil on canvas Gift of Louise Anderson Patten, 1972.17 Thomas Hudson (1701–1779) – Virginia Historical Society http://www.vahistorical.org/dynasties/robertcarter.htm

This is a WWI/WWII era Serving Our Country window banner that was hung in the home of a Son-in-Service. It showed the Patriotic sacrifice that the family was making to help the war effort. Recently donated into our collection by a Middlesex family whose uncle served in the war. It hung in the window of a Saluda home while the soldier was overseas.

The museum is building an exhibit around the Saluda Historic District and is asking for residents to share objects and stories related to life in this area of the county. Middlesex girls in dazzling white pose for the camera with pretty smiles. Did your family ever have dinner at the Saluda Hotel? Trade goods at the General store? Were you married at Antioch Baptist Church? What about court cases? Are there any stories related to a historic court case heard at the court house? Were your family members on juries with interesting witnesses? Did you bank at Bank of Middlesex in the historic bank before it was torn down? Any old checks from there? Savings bonds, seasonal calendars or the likes? Did you have your car serviced at the filling station? Any old pictures of the car or stories to tell of its trips? Do you still have the keys from it or hanging fuzzy dice? Photos from family picnics, croquet games or holiday meals held in the houses along Gloucester Road or General Puller Highway? Pictures of family gathered round the Christmas tree or involved in the family Easter egg hunt? Please, pursue your family photo albums and see what gems are hiding there. And share, share, share. The more people share, the more interesting the exhibit!

On Wednesday, November 9, Professor Julia King of St. Mary’s College, Maryland spoke to Mrs. Paige Moore’s fifth grade classes about on-going archaeological research in Middlesex County. Dr King On Wednesday, November 9, Professor Julia King of St. Mary’s College, Maryland spoke to Mrs. Paige Moore’s fifth grade classes about on-going archaeological research in Middlesex County. Dr. King was accompanied by Bob Prichard, who is the current Vice President of the Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society. The Museum and Historical Society helped arranged for the visit to the elementary school and had previously sponsored an on-line presentation by Dr. King about her work with the Rappahannock tribe. Dr. King has been working with a crew of professionals and volunteers who spent two weeks in late October and early November of this year investigating a site on Locust Grove Farm in Topping that showed signs of Native American habitation. She brought illustrations of early Virginia maps, and used samples of pottery shards, shells, projectile points, and a glass bead from the investigation in her presentation. She built on earlier class discussions on the first of the maps—that created by Captain John Smith based on a 1608 expedition. Dr. King was impressed by insights that the students in Mrs. Moore’s class gained from the Smith map and by thoughtful questions they asked about the archaeological research.

The long-awaited upgrade in the Middlesex County Museum’s HVAC system took place in Oct 2022. The new unit is a Carrier Infinity – 3 Ton 20 SEER residential Variable Speed Heat Pump Condensing Unit with Greenspeed Intelligence with a variable-speed fan coil. It was partnered with a Large Fan Powered Humidifier and an Infinity System Control Thermostat. The crew hard at work This was made possible by a generous grant from the River Counties Community Foundation which was awarded earlier this year. “This grant was used to support this much needed new HVAC/Dehumidifier and Upgrades for the main museum building,” says museum director Holly Horton. “The old unit was installed in 1994 and was struggling to keep up with our museum’s needs.” “Being that summers on the middle peninsula are hot and humid, keeping the museum at a constant temperature and humidity level is an ongoing issue. We have been running fans and small dehumidifier units for the past five years, but they were not meeting the long-term problem,” says Horton. “This grant was a godsend and a great help to the future of our collection.” The Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society maintains over three thousand items in the collection and most are acquired through the general public. Printed materials such as books, journals, newspapers, organizational records, personal papers, family history materials, sheet music, broadsides, maps, and photographs. Personal objects such as clothing, jewelry, textiles, instruments and furniture. They require specialized care for optimal preservation, whether they are on exhibit display or in acidic-free, climate-controlled storage. Dust, light and humidity can be dangerous to culturally historical objects as they age into the future. Improper care can have negative effects on their preservation. The Smithsonian Institution states, “Long term artifact preservation and storage is…important in order to ensure that…artifacts can remain a tangible, visible part of history for years to come… to be kept for the benefit of future generations.” “This new HVAC Unit and Dehumidifier purchased with the grant from the River Counties Community Foundation will help to maintain the cultural vibrancy of what the museum hosts under our roof and allow us to have a greater impact on the community at large,” says Horton. The Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society is devoted to fostering the procurement, care, study, and display of objects that are of lasting interest and value to the history and culture of Middlesex County. In addition, the Museum strives to enhance and further the education of members of the community of their history and heritage.  Horton continues, “As a cultural institution, our museum enhances people’s lives and creates a special experience outside of the normal realm of boating, swimming, waterskiing, picnicking and fishing that a lot of county visitors encounter when visiting Middlesex.”

The Middlesex County Museum board of directors and members gathered at the historic courthouse in Saluda on Sunday, November 13 to hold their annual business meeting. The past year was discussed and budgets and investments revisited. Board member Bessida Cauthorne White presented information about the historic markers that have been approved or are in the process of being approved for sites (Antioch Baptist Church) and people (Butler Harris) with ties to the county. Member Jim Robusto talked about his volunteer work doing research gathering original documents pertaining to the historic Irene Morgan case. Museum director Holly Horton discussed the exhibits created during the past year and plans for 2023. After the meeting adjourned, the group moved to the museum for a wine and cheese social hour. Attendees got to see firsthand the Native American artifacts and fossils included in the exhibit in the museum annex over the past year. Members mingle during the wine and cheese social. Director Holly Horton shows exhibit artifact to member Helen Chandler during a discussion about museum accessions. Members Bob Montague and Tad Thompson share ideas for future speakers while enjoying the reception. Board member Bessida White gives details concerning Butler Harris historic marker application process. Members listen as Board President Marilyn South discusses financials of the museum. Members arrive at the historic courthouse for the meeting.

This is a photograph of the Flemish brick floor as discovered many years ago.   A brief YouTube video of the bricks along the river  Video Link

Established in 1883, Centenary Methodist Church was the fifth church to be planted from Mother Church Forest Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church (founded 1840) within Middlesex County. The wooden building sits across from the historic Courthouse square in Saluda with five tall windows down its two sides of the building. Topped by a wooden copula, the building is fitting for the small congregation that met inside its walls for over 120 years. Generations of members moved through the church celebrating births and baptisms as well as marriages and deaths with each other as their church family. After many struggles with congregates relocating outside the county, it closed in 2006 and its members dispersed. The site is currently home to All Saints Anglican Church. This month our museum was gifted a part of that church’s history in the form of a bible. Found and donated by one of our members, the beautiful bible is richly decorated with gold foil stamping and embossing on the leather cover. It is bound with silver locking hinges to help hold and support the over-sized book. The 4-inch-thick fragile bible is inscribed from one generation to the next: from C. E. Franklin to R. W. Franklin. Correlating dates for births and deaths indicate this family was involved in the Middlesex community at the early turn of the last century. This was also a prosperous time for Middlesex County as well as Centenary Methodist Church. The bible will be included in the new display being designed for the Saluda Historic District.

Middlesex County Educators gather together to learn more about the local history of Middlesex County. Beaton Healy (literary specialist), Carol Walsh (mathematics specialist), Danielle Allen (principal) and Paige Moore (5th grade social studies teacher), and Dr. Byron Bishop (assistant superintendent), tour the Middlesex County Museum to discuss possible projects from multiple eras for students to learn more about Middlesex and the people who resided here earlier. The Middlesex County Museum and Historical Society and the Middlesex County Elementary School are joining together to develop educational materials for students to learn more about local history. The ninety-one students enrolled in the fifth grade this year will be participants in the newly developed curriculum, following on the heels of the Virginia history they studied in the fourth grade. Utilizing the museum’s extensive collection as a focal point for the project, official first-person documents will be added from within the county’s archives, as well as other universities, museums and archive collections as supporting materials. The students will work with plats, deeds, wills, maps, letters and journals to gain knowledge from our previous county residents. Museum director Holly Horton will help to cross-reference materials to meet the established learning goals for math, literacy, social studies, history, etc. An example could be census records dissected to look at math applications of population density with percentages of residents broken down by various demographics. Thanks to the foresight of County Clerk Philemon T. Woodward who moved our documents during the Civil War, Middlesex has its early documents. They were not burned in Richmond as was the fate of so many of our surrounding counties’ documents. The museum’s new exhibit “Middlesex Early Inhabitants” will be the focus of the first segment of the programming. Utilizing segments of John Smith’s maps and journals, Native life in our area will be defined and explored. Who were Middlesex County residents at that time? What did they eat, where did they sleep, how did they socialize, what were their family units like? Moving forward in time, census data, deeds, plats, indentured and enslaved labor records as well as militia registrations from the following centuries will be poured over and organized into timelines and grouped into projects that will open discussion about early life in Middlesex County and what it involved. While broken up into small groups, students will become modern detectives, noticing details and gaining clues that help to highlight important aspects of our past residents and their time here within our county’s borders.

On Sunday, October 16, 2022 Fred and Bettie Lee Gaskins will be presented the Middlesex County Museum & Historical Society Annual Preservation Award to recognize their 56 years of writing for, serving as treasurer and publishing the Southside Sentinel. (See The Event, Here.) In 2022 the Southside Sentinel is celebrating its 127th year of reporting on life in and around Middlesex County, and Fred and Bettie Lee Gaskins are marking their 56th year as its owners and publishers. The Gaskinses agree that in many ways it seems like yesterday when they bought the paper from attorneys John and William T. Bareford in 1966, and settled in. They were newlyweds, married only for about six months. “We weren’t kids but I feel like we did a lot of growing up in those early days,” said Fred. “We made a lot of lifelong friends while falling in love with Middlesex County, and of course our new hometown, Urbanna.” Both are graduates of the University of Richmond where Fred minored in journalism and Bettie Lee was editor of the college newspaper. Bettie Lee had experience working with her father, Emory Currell, editor and publisher of the Rappahannock Record in Kilmarnock for 66 years. Fred’s family was in the seafood business and lived in Irvington. With the help of some existing Sentinel staff in 1966, Fred worked full time at the paper, writing stories, taking photos, selling advertising and trying to learn how to produce a paper with hot lead. The office was where the Something Different retail/takeout side is now. Bettie Lee did bookkeeping and proofreading as needed while also teaching third grade in Middlesex. Within a year they had to give up on the old hot metal type printing technology they inherited and switch to a central printing plant using a new “offset” process. “We had a notion that we would buy our own modern press later, but it was never feasible to make the investment in equipment and trained personnel to operate it only one or two days each week,” Fred said. The Sentinel was never again printed in Middlesex County. Today the Sentinel, and the Rappahannock Record, are printed in Alexandria on the same press that prints the Washington Post. The major printing change was the first of many, many production changes and upgrades over the years. Now all the pre-press work is done on computers. After the death of Bettie Lee’s father in 1993, the Gaskinses also assumed management of the Rappahannock Record, owned by Bettie Lee and her sister, Clara Christopher, of Williamsburg. Fred became president and publisher of the Record and Tom Hardin became editor of the Sentinel. Bettie Lee serves as treasurer for both papers. In the ensuing years, and to Bettie Lee’s and Fred’s delight, their three children, Susan, Kate and Joseph, became involved with the papers. Susan and Kate now manage the Record and Joseph is the production manager and graphic designer at the Sentinel. Urbanna native Robert Mason Jr. has become the Record’s editor. Bettie Lee and Fred are supposed to be semi-retired, but still put in some long hours most weeks. On Main Street in Kilmarnock the Record still operates in the building where it was founded 105 years ago, but during the Gaskinses’ tenure the Sentinel has outgrown a couple of locations on Virginia Street in Urbanna. When the staff began to expand in the early 1970s a larger building was needed. They bought the former Mercer Funeral Home building at the corner of Virginia and Prince George Streets in 1972 and remodeled it. The former funeral home was the Sentinel’s home for the next 32 years. Then, faced with replacing the entire roof and other major repairs, Fred and Bettie Lee decided to build a new office in the Sentinel parking lot. When it was complete in 2004, the old funeral home was demolished and that space is the current parking area. Fred and Bettie Lee are quick to point out that although spacious buildings and new technology are nice to have, it’s been a dedicated staff that has enabled the Southside Sentinel and Rappahannock Record to produce their “weekly history books” for so many years. “Beginning in 1966 with the struggles the Sentinel had with hot lead, learning an entirely new way to compose the paper, hiring our first advertising sales person, our first reporter, and all the talented employees who have since come our way, I am simply amazed at how we have been blessed with the right people at the right time throughout our 56 years,” said Fred. “It’s almost as if some master playwright set up the plan, sent out a casting call when a need existed, and in they came. In my mind’s eye I see and remember so many of them, and the talents they brought and in some cases continue to contribute. We are thankful to all of them, and of course to the community for supporting its hometown newspaper.” (The 1986 centennial article mentioned that former publisher Julian Brown holds the record for the most number of years at the Sentinel, 59, so we are getting close to matching that!)

Article by Bill Dancy Colonial-era trash pits provide layers of history and a glimpse into life in the 17th century. But sometimes those glimpses are bigger than usual. Download The Full Article Here Download

Two early plantations; Purton in Gloucester Co. , and Shooters Hill in Middlesex Co. were locations where the Smith Family settled.   Purton Bay on the North shore of the York River and the land around it are very significant to Virginia history.  First,  the original Indian village that was Chief  Powhatan’s home in 1607 was located there, when the English settled Jamestown.  This is also where Pocahontas saved John Smith in 1607. It is called  “Werowocomoco” and had been a significant village for hundreds of years.   The Indians abandoned it in 1609-11 due to “English  pressure from settlement”.   Then in 1642 William Pryor, a very early and Purton Bay’s first English settler, was granted a land patent for 1300 acres around Purton Bay.  Next, in 1647 Richard Bernard came to Virginia, and took a lease on Pryor’s property.  He was developing the property and the home when he died in 1648-50.  In 1652 his wife Anne (1636-1698) purchased Purton Plantation  and added 1000 acres to the property for a total of 2300 acres. She also married John Smith (1627-1680) in 1652. He had just arrived in Virginia in 1652, probably at Jamestown.  Their son “Lt. Col. John Smith of Purton” (1662-1698) was Speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses, in 1680.  That year he also married Mary Warner (about 1665-1700) daughter of Augustine Warner builder of “Warner Hall Plantation” in Gloucester.   Today the National Park Service owns Werowocomoco (part of Purton Plan) and will some day open it to the public again. Their son Augustine Warner “Gus” Smith (1687-1756 ) was like his father, born at Purton, and moved to “Shooters Hill plantation” in Middlesex, about 1724. His father probably acquired that 1256 acres in Middlesex, on the Piankatank River in the late 1600s. Augustine married Sarah Carver in 1711, their son was John Smith (1715- 1771). When operated by the Smith’s, Shooters Hill plantation had a very large three story brick home with lead roof. There was a fish pond on the lead roof all of which made it exceptional for that time. The home burned sometime before 1797. This plantation also had a significant Indian attachment. During John Smith of Jamestown exploration of the Chesapeake Bay he visited a significant Indian village on the north shore of the Piankatank River between August 30 to September 1, 1608. The Indian Kings house (village) on the Piankatank was most likely part of, or next to land that became Shooters Hill. Were these two properties, land of high value to early settlers because they had all necessities for survival and some land was cleared which was for Indian crops (corn, beans, squash, and tobacco)? The English settlers were interested in cleared land for planting “Tobacco”, their gold! Rob Warner, Deer Chase Subdivision on the Piankatank, Middlesex Co.

Located across the street from the courthouse, the Saluda Hotel operated from 1855-1937 and provided county visitors with lodging and meals. This brick, three-story structure had four chimneys, a wide veranda porch across the front of the building, and grounds in the back with croquet and tennis in the summer. Case witnesses, both for the defense and prosecution, as well as trial lawyers, stayed at the Saluda Hotel during their case hearings. Traveling salesmen and sports fishermen also stayed there according to historic records. Lodgings there provided 3 meals a day and featured farm to table cuisine utilizing local fruits and vegetables and fish and oysters. The hotel was built by Thomas W. Fauntleroy in 1855. He lived on Oakenham Plantation there in Saluda which he had built in 1837. After his death, Addison Hervey Ward and his wife Eudora Catherine Roane Ward bought Oakenham and the Saluda Hotel in 1884. They later sold the hotel to a succession of owners, but during much of the 1920s and 30s, their daughter, Mrs. Lena Ward Blakey operated the hotel. Her granddaughter Patricia lived with her there and recorded many memories of this time when she was an adult. Pat’s daughter, Jean, donated a hotel register to the museum this month.  It will join photographs, keys and service ware from the hotel already in our permanent collection. All will go on display in a newly created Saluda Historic District section of the museum. The Saluda Hotel stood across the street from the historic courthouse in downtown Saluda and was demolished by 1944. A gas station now stands on the lot. Page from 1929 Saluda Hotel ledger

Before anything can be included in an exhibit and seen by the public in the museum, it needs to be accessioned and brought into our computer system software program, PastPerfect. This involves much detailed focus time to capture all of the facets related to the new accession. It proves so helpful in the future to have historical information and stories related to the object as well as its physical aspects. The better the back story, the more interesting it is to the public. Marilyn oversees the assignment of a new accession number and entering all of the pertinent information into the software program: Size, shape, color, type of material made of, where found, who used, and how it relates to Middlesex County history. Tyler scans our photographs and negatives at large sizes so that we will be able to utilize them digitally in a variety of applications including exhibits and on our website. They are all assigned names related to their new accession numbers. He also uses this process to capture a likeness of fragile paper objects such as documents, forms, ledgers, newspapers, letters, journals and such. And finally, Holly pulls the information together to create a 3D experience for the museum visitor. They can see the object and learn more about how it was used and some information about who used it in the past. Our new exhibit about the Saluda Historic District is currently in this information gathering process. Objects already in our collection are being married with newly accessioned materials and all will be cross referenced with historical documents to create an exhibit that everyone will enjoy.

Jewish is not how most would describe the cultural landscape of the Middle Peninsula. However, in the late nineteenth century, “Jewish” would have been an appropriate characterization of Middlesex County. Located in what is now the community of Water View, Inglewood was purchased by Joseph Friedenwald—a member of a prominent Jewish family in Baltimore—to become a Jewish agricultural colony. Formerly the home of Robert Latane Montague and his son Andrew Jackson Montague (the 4th Lieutenant Governor and the 44th Governor of Virginia respectively), Inglewood was situated along the Rappahannock River between what is now State Route 640 (Waterview Road), and Weeks Road.1 Ten to twelve families of recent Russian immigrants began living there in October of 1882. For the next thirteen months, members of the Waterview Colony farmed between five and eight hundred acres belonging to Mr. Friedenwald, and the newspaper The Baltimore Sun published regular updates on their status. P.T. Woodward, Dr. William Kemp Gatewood, Rev. J.W. Ryland, Rev. W.A. Street, Robert H. McCann, and A.B. Evans are documented as assisting the colonists, and it is likely that other Middlesex locals did as well.2 While it is still unclear why the Waterview Colony was unsuccessful at cultivating the land, the colonization of Middlesex County was deemed a failure by the Baltimore Jews providing funding, and the colony was officially abandoned by the end of 1883.3 Most of the individuals who lived in the Waterview Colony returned to Baltimore, but it is unknown if they stayed there. I am researching this endeavor by the Baltimore Jewish community to create an agricultural community of Russian Jews in Water View, Virginia as part of my undergraduate thesis. I believe it was a response to the increased number of Jews emigrating from Russia in 1882. I want to find out who the colonists were and learn why the colony failed, as well as discover how the landscape of Water View has changed since then, so that I can help others understand something about Jewish immigration to the United States prior to the Immigration Act of 1924 (which restricted immigration based on nationality through quotas)4 and highlight an unexpected piece of Middlesex County history. Naomi Alberts is a Junior in the Double-Degree program between Barnard College and the Jewish Theological Seminary and is spending the summer of 2022 working with the Fairfield Foundation and the Middlesex County Museum. Notes and Select Bibliography: 1. Middlesex County, Virginia, Deed Book 30:185. 2. “Refugees in Virginia.” The Baltimore Sun . Baltimore, MD. April 9, 1883. 3. Larry Chowning, Signatures in Time: A Living History of Middlesex County, Virginia . Middlesex County, Virginia, 2012. 4. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “United States Immigration and Refugee Law, 1921-1980.” Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/united-states-immigration-and-refugee-law-1921-1980. Accessed on July 08, 2022. Help Wanted: Know something about the Waterview Colony? Please reach out to me at: waterview_research@nralberts.myfastmail.com

Download and view the document: Some Notes On The Grymes Family Of Middlesex County, Virginia Grymes Family History Download

TREE OYSTER SHELL Isognomon maxillata (Lamarck, 1819) Taxonomy (PBDB) Life : Animalia : Mollusca : Bivalvia : Ostreida : Malleidae : Isognomon : Isognomon maxillata This hinged bivalve grew in Middlesex County during the Miocene Era some 10-20 million years ago. It is now extinct but has a close family member still here that we enjoy eating today, Crassostrea Virginica, also known as the Virginia Oyster, the Eastern Oyster, or the American Oyster. The fossilized remains of the tree oyster show that during its life, the tree oyster lived in a brackish marine water environment, attaching itself for a stationary lifestyle by byssal threads that resemble those of mussels or pen shells. It was a suspension feeder that grew up to 3.7 inches. The museum is blessed with several of these fossils in beautiful condition all on display in our new exhibit, “Middlesex Early Inhabitants”.

The color of a shark tooth, or any other fossil, is determined by the type of sediment the fossil is preserved in. The color has almost nothing to do with the age or type of fossil. To elaborate, let’s take a basic look at the fossilization process for shark teeth: Let’s say a particular shark tooth is shed and sinks to the bottom of the sea. To become a fossil, it is quickly buried by sediments. Over time, the oxygen poor sediment layers build up and up. Pressure will start to compact the sediments that the shark tooth is entombed in. When enough layers and pressure build up, water will cause minerals in the surrounding sediment to flow into the shark tooth (permineralization). Eventually the minerals will fill in and replace most of the original organic material and the shark tooth will become preserved as a fossil. The color of the minerals in the sediment will become the color of the fossil. Colors of Shark Teeth: The Simple Answer The color of a shark tooth, or any other fossil, is determined by the type of sediment the fossil is preserved in. The color has almost nothing to do with the age or type of fossil. Fossilguy.com