Maryland, Baltimore
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On this site
was erected
Patapsco Friends
Meeting House
6th Mo. 12th, 1681
is the earliest record of this
meeting
Removed to
Aisquith & Fayette Sts.
Baltimore Town
2nd Mo. 22nd, 1781
(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Churches, Etc. • Colonial Era) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
On this sitewas erected
Patapsco Friends
Meeting House
6th Mo. 12th, 1681
is the earliest record of this
meeting
Removed to
Aisquith & Fayette Sts.
Baltimore Town
2nd Mo. 22nd, 1781
(Cemeteries & Burial Sites • Churches, Etc. • Colonial Era) Includes location, directions, 6 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
On 10 Dec. 1923, millhand Henry Whitter of
Fries, Virginia, recorded nine songs in New York
City for OKeh Records. Released early in 1924,
the coupling of “Wreck on the Southern Old 97”
and “Lonesome Road Blues” became one of the
first successful country recordings. Whitter
recorded more than 100 songs from 1923 to 1930.
Whitter’s success inspired others who had worked
with him at the Fries Textile Plant to travel to
New York and audition. Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman
made his first recordings in Sept. 1924, eventually exceeding Whitter’s output. Likewise,
Kelly Harrell traveled north in 1925 and
continued to record throughout the 1920s.
The original “New River Train” song was claimed
by the Ward family of Galax as part of their
repertoire as early as 1895. The song was believed
to refer to the train that ran on the New River
Line in 1883 as part of the Norfolk and Western
system serving the town of Fries until 1985. It
was first recorded in December 1923 by Henry
Whitter. It has since been recorded by a number
of artists, including local residents Kelly Harrell
in 1925 and E. V. “Pop” Stoneman in 1928.
George Spangler Farm
George Bushman Farm
Nearby was the home of James and Lovice
Sage, whose five-year-old daughter Caty was
abducted in 1792. Fifty–six years later her
brother Charles located her in eastern Kansas
after a Wyandots Indian told him that a woman
named Yourowquains, with similar features to
his, lived with the Wyandots. Another brother,
Samuel, investigated and confirmed that she
was their sister. Through an interpreter,
Yourowquains told them that a “white man”
abducted her. She lived with the Cherokee,
before they gave her as a present to the
Wyandots, who adopted her. She had three
Wyandot husbands and died in Jan. 1853.
The Warham Mill was established by Mr. John Warham, first minister to the Windsor Church, in 1840. The Mill has been in continuous use as a grist mill to the present day. Tradition says it was the first grist mill in Connecticut.
This marks the road to Bissell’s Ferry, established by the General Court of Connecticut in 1641. Operated by the Bissell family for nearly one hundred years. Later leased to various townsmen and continuously operated until 1917. The original crossing was sixty rods north of Chief Justice Ellworth’s house. The location was changed in 1677.
Bork in Elk Creek, Virginia, June 29, 1821, member of the House of Delegates, 1874–1877, member state Senate, 1879-1882. One of the “Big Four,” a group which resisted many proposals of the Readjusters. Died in Elk Creek, December 25, 1885.
This place became the county seat of Grayson County in 1850; the first case was tried in the newly erected courthouse in 1851. The present courthouse was built in 1908. Independence was incorporated in 1934.
Designed and pioneered in the 1890’s. First manufactured by John Deere in 1911, commonly known as a “horse drawn hay” mowing machine.
Green Cove Station was a rail stop along the “Virginia Creeper” Railroad that ran from Abingdon, Virginia, to Todd, North Carolina. Built by the Virginia Carolina Railroad about 1914, it also served as a post office, general store, and telegraph office, managed primarily by William M. Buchanan. Famed photographer O. Winston Link memorialized this building in his 1956 photo “Maud Bows to the Virginia Creeper.” The last train passed here in 1977, but the station remained as a general store for a few more years. In the early 1990s the former station was restored as a U.S. Forest Service visitor and education center for the Virginia Creeper National Recreational Trail.
This works is one of O. Winston Link’s most revered photographs. Mr. Link’s legacy is having captured the end of the “Golden Age” of the railroad in this country. His innovative techniques with light and dark were years ahead of his time. This particular photograph symbolizes technology transforming the face of rural America. The tracks that were once the railroad have been removed leaving the national treasure known as The Virginia Creeper Trail. Enjoy.
The Abingdon Branch of the Norfolk & Western
Railway was nicknamed the “Virginia Creeper,”
likely for the train’s slow speed through this
mountainous region. Initially chartered by the
Abingdon Coal & Iron Railroad in 1887, little construction occurred until it was reorganized into
the Virginia-Carolina Railway in 1898. By 1901
the railroad began providing passenger and
freight service from Abingdon to Damascus
and by 1913 reached Whitetop Station. By 1915
service was extended to present-day Todd, North
Carolina. The line merged into the Norfolk &
Western Railway in 1919. The last train ran
in 1977. In the 1980s a portion of the old railroad bed was converted into the Virginia
Creeper National Recreation Trail.
