Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, May 14, 1990 TAG: 9005140175
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GERALD H. HUBBS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Query XII framed the question, "A notice of the counties, cities, townships, and villages?" Jefferson replied that we had no townships, since trade could be brought generally to our doors instead of our being obliged to go in quest of it.
He furnished a list of towns, however, which he qualified as villages or hamlets, that included only two west of the Blue Ridge: Winchester, 200 miles to the north, and Staunton, 90 miles up the Great Valley. Both were noted as river towns located on the Patowmac or its waters. Today we say Potomac.
We also have the excellent and most recent "Wythe County, Virginia: A Bicentennial History, 1790" documented by Mary B. Kegley. She observes that "Virginia was not noted for its towns and commercial centers as the New England states were. The custom in Virginia was to establish in each county a county seat but seldom another place of significance to the businessman or his customers. Wythe County was no exception."
Now comes Blue Ridge Country for January-February 1990 with the feature story, "Blue Ridge Town Reborn." It heralds that "Something new and important is soon to come to be in these tall blue mountains. Just east of Roanoke, Va., along a beautiful and untouched section of the Roanoke River gorge, pieces of an 18th-century Blue Ridge Town are being gathered for re-assembly."
Pictured in color and style, is this a depiction of early New Orleans, Charleston, Winchester, Staunton or all of the above? An 18th-century town constructed high on the Blue Ridge was neither plausible nor possible.
In 1781, it took a wagon train three weeks to come from Spotsylvania County to Fort Chiswell, the present Interstate 77 truck stop. Out here, this was truly the western frontier.
Frontier life was isolated, bleak, harsh, and quite cold. For some, it would not be endurable. The hostile Shawnees passed through Southwestern Virginia at will, hunting or, upon occasion, taking cattle. Their passage was not always predictable, however, as the record of attacks, cabin-burning and captures has proven.
The Cherokee Nation held the southern edge of this frontier and was feared for good reason. The Blue Ridge of the 18th century was hardly a setting for tea in the afternoon. This belies the replica of the Vancouver Victorian Hotel also conceptualized by Explore.
Misconcepted is the better word. Blue Ridge Town never existed. In its own way it is out of place just as the Victorian Hotel is out of touch.
The editor of the Roanoke Times & World-News on May 3 described the opposition to Explore as loud and persistent. His predecessor preferred to say fierce. Since I have never attended or heard of an open meeting in the Roanoke Valley that would invite contrary or nay opinions to completing the Explore Project, that depiction comes as quite a surprise.
by CNB