Monthly Archives: January 2018

Leave a reply

George Washington’s Birthplace at Pope’s Creek. Here the main house rides the tides above a lazy, wide estuary, crowded with Canada geese, as it drifts into a navigable bay of the Potomac, which is a lazier, even wider estuary, and which is even more thickly trafficked by flocks of noisy Canada geese. At winter sunset, the frosty site took my breath in a gasp.

The house on the site is a 1932 concoction. It doesn’t even purport to be what was built on the site by Washington’s father. That house, and all the other buildings built by the Washingtons, seems gone. But what is there is gorgeous and site-sensitive, and there must be terrific exhibits of 18th century planters’ life here, for all that. 

I was disappointed that on the day I arrived, the site was closed because of the recent “Government Shutdown”. Still, Park Ranger Ian, the stalwart superintendent, came in on what should have been his day off. He found me roaming among the cattle, apologized charmingly, then faithfully and informatively, escorted me off the grounds.

I shall return! So said another general, the Virginian Douglas MacArthur. And blessings on our United States National Park Service.

The Culpeper National Cemetery. Many thousan’ gone. 

These are the special memorials set up by the State of New York and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,, to honor Civil War regiments buried at Culpeper. This tiny market town was the local rail head, and thus the graveyard, for the huge armies constantly clashing in the Virginia Piedmont. 

There is powerful medicine in the ground here.

The blood-slicked pontoon bridges at Fredericksburg. The hellish artillery fusillades at Chancellorsville. Snipers crackling in the trees at Payne’s Farm, aka Mine Run. The Plank Road that led Grant out of the Wilderness, but straight into the “Bloody Angle” at Spotsylvania Courthouse eight miles south. The charge at Brandy Station, the largest cavalry battle of the war. 

There are WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and other vets buried in this beautiful cemetery, too, many with their wives.

Leave a reply

Great new mural (2017) in the heart of Culpeper. VA, commemorating George Washington’s first job, at age 17: surveyor of Culpeper County.

From Wikipedia: “Washington began his career as a professional surveyor in 1749 at the age of 17. He received a commission and surveyor’s license from the College of William & Mary[d] and became the official surveyor for the newly formed Culpeper County. He was appointed to this well-paid official position thanks to his brother Lawrence’s connection to the prominent Fairfax family. He completed his first survey in less than two days, plotting a 400-acre parcel of land, and was well on his way to a promising career. He was subsequently able to purchase land in the Shenandoah Valley, the first of his many land acquisitions in western Virginia.”

Unsurprisingly, Washington did a splendid job. Look at Culpeper’s neat county seat. Set along a high ridge, with views across a fertile valley to the Blue Ridge horizon, the downtown business area gives marketers a sun-drenched, sky-domed streetscape. And the ante-bellum residential neighborhoods huddle in shady groves strung along the gentle slopes below downtown. 

Look carefully at the last picture: it’s a Merle Norman cosmetics store, a surprising outpost of the San Fernando Valley’s cosmetics dynasty family, who created San Sylmar. And thereby, hangs a tale…