Tagged With: History

William B. Scott, CSA

Photograph taken on Thursday, October 05, 2017 by Henry
William B. Scott, CSA

William B. Scott, CSA

With all the hoo-ha about Civil War statues, it is sometimes easy to forget that these were people. William D. Scott was a member of Company D, 14th Virginia Cavalry. He was wounded in action against Union forces and subsequently died. He was buried in a churchyard in Montgomery County, Maryland. His grave is not in the cemetery but on the other side of the building. He is believed to be the only Confederate soldier who was killed in action and is buried in a marked grave in the county.

I don’t know how William felt about slavery, whether he was fighting for what he saw as state’s rights, or if he was simply pressed into service. Regardless, he was a young man, killed in war. He likely had parents, siblings and possibly even a wife and children. People die in war but if you think he deserved to die, then I’m afraid we’ll have to agree to disagree. May God have mercy on him.

Categories: People | Tags: , , , , , , | Comments Off on William B. Scott, CSA

Warren Historic Site

Photograph taken on Sunday, October 22, 2017 by Henry
Warren Historic Site

Warren Historic Site

After church today Cathy and I went out to Edward’s Ferry and then to White’s Ferry. It was a beautiful day and we walked a little on what’s left of the tow path near Edward’s Ferry. On the way back towards Poolesville we stopped for a few pictures at the Warren Historic Site. The site consists of three old buildings, the Martinsburg Negro School, built in 1886 and serving grades 1 through 5, the Warren United Methodist Church which, built in 1903, and the Loving Charity Lodge Hall, built in 1914. I’m not actually sure which building is which (except the church) but I’m guessing this is the oldest of the three. (UPDATE: Cathy saw a video that talked about this place, as well as others, and this building is the Lodge, not the school.)

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on Warren Historic Site

Middle Field, Third Battle of Winchester

Photograph taken on Saturday, March 17, 2018 by Henry
Cathy at Middle Field, Third Battle of Winchester

Cathy at Middle Field, Third Battle of Winchester

As mentioned yesterday, we are visiting Winchester, Virginia this weekend to do a little family history work. This time it doesn’t involve library work. Mostly we wanted to visit the battlefields of the Second and Third Battles of Winchester. Cathy’s great, great grandfather was taken prisoner on June 15, 1863 during the second battle. He spent some little while on Belle Isle in Richmond before being paroled. Today we were able to find the road he and his fellow soldiers were on when they ran into the main body of the Confederate Army.

After that we had a late lunch and then moved on to the battlefield for the Third Battle of Winchester, also known as the Battle of Opequon Creek. This avenue of trees, which would not have been there in 1864, runs through the middle of what is known as the Middle Field where some of the heaviest fighting took place. Cathy’s ancestor was, with the rest of his Pennsylvania Volunteer regiment, fighting in General Wright’s Sixth Corps in General Ricketts’s division. They were along the Berryville Road (now Virginia route 7) about a mile to the south of this point and what is now the site of the Winchester Gateway shopping center. We don’t know when or where in the course of the battle he was killed but sometime that day he died. He is, presumably, in one of the graves marked ‘Unknown Soldier’ in the National Cemetery in Winchester.

Here is a short description taken from CivilWar.org:

On September 19th [1864], Sheridan advanced toward Winchester along the Berryville Pike with Maj. Gen. Horatio Wright’s Sixth Corps and Brig. Gen. William Emory’s Nineteenth Corps, crossing Opequon Creek east of town. The Union advance was delayed long enough for Early to concentrate his forces to meet the main assault, which continued for several hours. Casualties were very heavy.

Categories: People, Travel | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Middle Field, Third Battle of Winchester

Edison Phonograph Records

Photograph taken on Monday, June 25, 2018 by Henry
Edison Phonograph Records

Edison Phonograph Records

Among the things brought out of Cathy’s mom’s house were a box of Edison Phonograph cylinder records. There was also a record player. David took that but couldn’t get these into the car, so they will stay here until next time. The two cases shown here are slightly different from one another. On the left is one that says Edison Gold Moulded Record and on the right, simply Edison Record. I would normally assume that the Gold Moulded one is newer than the plainer one, but the dates on them (which are 1906 and 1908 respectively) don’t support that. The disks inside almost certainly don’t match the sleeves. The disks in them, which may or may not be those originally in these sleeves, are Rock of Ages, by the Edison Dixie Quartet and Kitty O’Neill Medley of Reels (violin).

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Edison Phonograph Records

Some Books

Photograph taken on Monday, November 12, 2018 by Henry
Two Shelves of Books

Two Shelves of Books

As I mentioned in the text on the recent photo of my reading room, I need to organize the books. We’ll, I’ve begun the process and I have a feeling it’s going to be something of an iterative process and will take a while. There’s no perfect organizational structure and since this is my library, I figure I can organize it in a way that makes sense to me. I started with easier sections, because they’re easier. I have a shelf for Shakespeare, another for poetry (with one book of Shakespeare’s poetical works there, instead of with his plays). There is a shelf for textbooks (some of which we’ll probably get rid of), four shelves of cook books, three shelves of “classic” fiction, where the stories need to have been written at least 100 years old to qualify. In this photo are two shelves that are not really quite complete. The books on the right end of the upper shelf are fourteen of my nineteen Kipling books, more books by a single author than anyone but the Bard of Avon (and copies of the Bible, which is sort of a different category). I’m a big Kipling fan and while I don’t have all of his works, I’ve enjoyed what I do have.

At the left on the lower shelf are almost all of my Modern Library books (War and Peace is too tall for that shelf). Those include older works from Homer, Plato, and Herodotus through Roman Tacitus and up to relatively recent including another Kipling (Kim) and the poems of Robert Frost and The African Queen by C. S. Forester. To the right of that are Pinguin Classics including some Greek plays, Dante, and The Song of Roland. It’s a mishmash and as I said, it may not be the final grouping. But it’s a start.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | 1 Comment

Black Rock Mill

Photograph taken on Thursday, December 27, 2018 by Henry
Seneca Creek

Seneca Creek

This morning, when I went to take pictures off my camera’s memory card, it started with December 25. The last pictures on my computer had been from December 23 and for a little while I worried that I hadn’t taken any on the 24th. That wouldn’t have been the end of the world, of course, but I’ve gone nearly eight years taking at least one picture a day and I was upset to think that I might have missed a day. It turns out that the script I use to copy files started in the wrong place for some reason and I had pictures from the 24th (which I thought was the case).

I worked on Monday and again yesterday but today I decided to take the day off. Dorothy and I went to the Lancaster County Dutch Market in Germantown and then to Black Rock Mill, on Seneca Creek.

Seneca Creek

Seneca Creek

The first picture is looking downstream from the the banks of the creek, standing just below the mill. As you can see, it was a beautiful, cool day. The second picture is just a small bit of rapids in the creek. I think it’s a pretty picture and I love the colors of the water, as they tumble over a few small rocks. I took a few pictures of the mill, as well, and if you’ve never been there, it’s an interesting piece of history. There isn’t a lot to see, but the mill stone and some of the large gears are still there inside the building, which is otherwise basically an empty shell.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , , , | 1 Comment

History Books

Photograph taken on Sunday, December 01, 2019 by Henry
History Books

History Books

When I was in school, both K through 12 and in college, I was not much of a reader. It wasn’t that I couldn’t read. But I was a slow reader and it took me a long time to get through anything of substance. I don’t think it was because I had a short attention span. It was probably as short as that of many boys but I could focus if I wanted to. The problem was that I didn’t want to. History, among a few other subjects, simply didn’t interest me. Now, things are different. I love history and although I still read slowly, I’m much more likely to be reading history of one sort or another that almost anything else. When I set up my library in the basement I organized my books mostly by subject but there are a few groups of books that are grouped together for other reasons. In the case of these books, they are both historical in nature and unified by their common publisher. To their left (outside this photo) are most of my Modern Library books, also grouped together.

A side note, four of these books, The Song of Roland and the three part Dante series, were all translated by Dorothy Sayers (13 June 1893 – 17 December 1957), famed for her mystery stories.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , | Comments Off on History Books

Rusty Gears

Photograph taken on Saturday, January 23, 2021 by Henry
Rusty Gears

Rusty Gears

Cathy and I went for a walk at the Montgomery County Agricultural History Farm Park today. There’s an area with old farming machinery on either side of the road and I took a few photos there. I’ve always liked machinery and sometimes think mechanical engineering would have been a good career choice for me. If I had been a better student when I was a student, it might have been possible, even. There’s not much use playing the What If game, though, I suppose.

Note, I generally try to post photographs at least reasonably close to when thy were taken. In mid January I ran out of space on one of my hard drives and it’s taken me until mid April to get the new one installed (laziness, mostly). It’s finally up and running and I’ll see what I can do about getting caught up. Thanks for your patience.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Rusty Gears

Woodlawn Manor Barn

Photograph taken on Sunday, December 03, 2023 by Henry
Woodlawn Manor Barn

Woodlawn Manor Barn

After stopping to see Cathy’s mom we drove to Woodlawn Manor. We’ve been there quite a few times but for some reason we haven’t ever walked around to the lower side of the barn. The stone barn was built in 1832 and its three floors house the Woodlawn Museum and Visitor Center. It’s only open from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM on Fridays and Saturdays from April through November, so we were there at the wrong time on all three criteria.

From there we walked on the trail to the Sandy Spring, which is mostly through the woods. We took a short side trail to a hollow tree before continuing across the Northwest Branch Anacostia River and up through a field to the spring.

Categories: Miscellaneous | Tags: , , , , | Comments Off on Woodlawn Manor Barn