Rockbridge Vignettes

Rockbridge Vignettes Interesting and entertaining small stories about Rockbridge County's people, places and things. We post new items most evenings around dinnertime.

Some days, we give you a rerun bonus item in early afternoon.

After the Civil War, when many people in Rockbridge had no cash, the barter system came into prominence, wrote Charles B...
02/20/2025

After the Civil War, when many people in Rockbridge had no cash, the barter system came into prominence, wrote Charles Bodie in “Remarkable Rockbridge” — used for retail purchases to bank loans to taxes. Barters were traded for however much value you could convince someone to accept (think bitcoin). The Rev. W. S. White of the Presbyterian Church needed a new suit, so a merchant gave the tailor a credit on White’s behalf.

Irma Thompson was born in 1917 and died on the day after Christmas 102 years later. She left an imprint on education in ...
02/20/2025

Irma Thompson was born in 1917 and died on the day after Christmas 102 years later. She left an imprint on education in Buena Vista and Rockbridge as large as anyone's, even though it was tough for her to get her own education. She started out at the little two-room colored school in her native Buena Vista, and then took the train to Lexington, where the next level of education for Blacks could be found. Then on to Rustburg in Campbell County for high school and Bluefield, West Virginia, for college — and back to Buena Vista to teach others in the same two-room school where she had started. (It never had an official name.) When area schools at last integrated, civic leaders asked her to show them how to do it right. Up to the moment of her death she worked toward the restoration of the old Buena Vista colored school, which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. The portrait is by Bruce Macdonald.

A familiar face? This is Kelly Evans, a Rockbridge High graduate who earned eight letters there in lacrosse, cross count...
02/19/2025

A familiar face? This is Kelly Evans, a Rockbridge High graduate who earned eight letters there in lacrosse, cross country and track, and is now a business news anchor at CNBC. After high school, she went to Washington and Lee for journalism (and continued her athletic career) and started in print journalism at the Wall Street Journal.

Education for Black children in Rockbridge was a struggle for two centuries. Resources were scant, and formal segregatio...
02/18/2025

Education for Black children in Rockbridge was a struggle for two centuries. Resources were scant, and formal segregation continued into the 1950s. But sprouts emerged right after the Civil War, and an important contributor was the Lexington Colored School, operated by the Colored Baptist Church (now First Baptist). By 1877, it also operated a school for girls, enrolling enrolled about 140 pupils during the year. This article from the Lexington Gazette reports that the county school superintendent (a Washington and Lee professor) and Col. J.T.L. Preston, of VMI, gave speeches at the graduation ceremony that year

Pompeo Jaccheri (1835-86) and his wife Christina Bescherer (1935-1915) ran a popular restaurant and confectionery on Mai...
02/17/2025

Pompeo Jaccheri (1835-86) and his wife Christina Bescherer (1935-1915) ran a popular restaurant and confectionery on Main Street across from the Presbyterian Church. The restaurant was particularly celebrated for its oysters. The Jaccheris had a daughter, Gertrude, who posed dramatically for Michael Miley in the early 20th century as he was experimenting with color photography.

When Jefferson Shields, known as Ol’ Jeff, died at the age of 83 in April 1918, the County News lauded his “marked cheer...
02/16/2025

When Jefferson Shields, known as Ol’ Jeff, died at the age of 83 in April 1918, the County News lauded his “marked cheerfulness” and “good Christian character,” noting that “his white beard, black face and smiling, genial manner made for him friends everywhere.” Ol’ Jeff frequently attended parades and other events at Virginia Military Institute and was well known to cadets of the early 20th century, one of whom, Eli B. Springs, took this photo about 1912.

The dilemma of religion at Washington College: In the mid-19th century, the Church of England was solidifying its positi...
02/15/2025

The dilemma of religion at Washington College: In the mid-19th century, the Church of England was solidifying its position in state government, and Robert E. Lee was an Episcopalian. Nonetheless, after more than a century as an overtly Presbyterian institution, it wasn’t easy for Washington College to cut that tie. As early as 1873, both the trustees and the alumni began separating themselves from Presbyterian domination (writes Ollinger Crenshaw, W&L’s 20th-century historian). Yet an 1896 self-critique written by Professor James W. Quarles, himself a Presbyterian minister, noted that W&L had alienated its religious alumni (who were sending their sons to Hampden-Sydney to get a proper religious education) while failing to gain favor with other denominations. Today you can see a few former Presbyterian artifacts, but denominational influence of any sort has vanished.

It was national news on April 24, 1963, when fire consumed two wings of the wooden Natural Bridge Hotel (left), destroyi...
02/14/2025

It was national news on April 24, 1963, when fire consumed two wings of the wooden Natural Bridge Hotel (left), destroying 47 of the 85 guest rooms and taking firefighters seven hours to put out. The structure, including the unburned section, was quickly replaced by today’s all-brick, 120-room hotel, which opened with great fanfare in 1965.

In the civilian world, if you had two brothers who became CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, Hollywood would make a movie ab...
02/13/2025

In the civilian world, if you had two brothers who became CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, Hollywood would make a movie about it. In the U.S. Army, two VMI brothers, Richard Prillaman (class of 1949) and Paul Prillaman (1953) earned five stars between them (Richard had the extra) and a Silver Star and Purple Heart apiece. In 1977 Paul became VMI commandant (he had been the more diligent student of the two) briefly, before the Army in typical fashion sent him somewhere else. He retired to Lexington and with his wife, Sissy, is buried in Oak Grove. The brothers’ fascinating story — we haven’t even touched on their hardscrabble childhood or their dramatic adventures in theaters of war — is told in the new VMI Turnouts. https://www.vmialumni.org/big-stoop-and-little-stoop-the-story-of-two-vmi-brothers/

"Rockbridge in 733 Vignettes" has nearly exhausted its inventory, and it will be leaving Amazon around the end of the mo...
02/13/2025

"Rockbridge in 733 Vignettes" has nearly exhausted its inventory, and it will be leaving Amazon around the end of the month. It will still be available over-the-counter at The Bookery on West Nelson Street and the W&L Bookstore (over-the-counter or mail order; shipping is $9). If you want to use Amazon, where shipping is $6, do it now.

Lucy Ackerly (1892-1987) was a local schoolteacher for five decades and author of a memoir, “Yesterdays,” about (among o...
02/12/2025

Lucy Ackerly (1892-1987) was a local schoolteacher for five decades and author of a memoir, “Yesterdays,” about (among other things) her childhood on Plank Road near Broad Creek. To hear Miss Lucy tell it, a child could be completely happy, in those pre-TikTok days, playing with quartz rocks, sculpting people from mud or frolicking on the Fourth of July under the water falling from a mill wheel.

This is the old so-called Negro Public School on Randolph Street (the Methodist Church is at the left), which operated u...
02/12/2025

This is the old so-called Negro Public School on Randolph Street (the Methodist Church is at the left), which operated until the 1920s. Two factors contributed to its eventual replacement by the Lylburn Downing School on Diamond Hill: (1) Its basic inadequacies, which left little opportunity for simple upgrading; and (2) growing discomfort among the town leadership over such an inferior school in a supposedly enlightened and education-centric community.

Speaking of Black History Month, did you know Tiny Richardson? His birth certificate said Matthew Leroy Richardson Jr., ...
02/11/2025

Speaking of Black History Month, did you know Tiny Richardson? His birth certificate said Matthew Leroy Richardson Jr., and he was synonymous for nearly 50 years with VMI, where the board of visitors in 1989 adopted a resolution honoring him and the alumni associated voted him a citation of honor. Profiled on his retirement by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and WDBJ-TV, he was president of the local Boys Club and the Lylburn Downing PTA, Rockbridge Boy Scouts commissioner, Red Cross and United Way director, and a recreation director in Lexington for many years. Richardson Park, next to Lylburn Downing School, is named for him.

There’s no mystery about who was the stonemason and who was the owner of Stone House, just outside Lexington on what’s n...
02/11/2025

There’s no mystery about who was the stonemason and who was the owner of Stone House, just outside Lexington on what’s now Ross Road. Or when it was built: 1797. John Spear was so proud of his work that he commemorated himself on a gable. Zachariah Johnston was a Revolutionary War officer and member of the Virginia General Assembly. Johnston’s direct descendants, Matt and Mary Raine Paxton, who inherited the late-Georgian-style house in 1964, undertook a meticulous restoration and preservation plan. The original kitchen, with a massive fireplace, is now connected to the main house by a covered passageway. It was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Clark Mollenhoff (1921-91) was a Pulitzer Prize-wining political reporter and special counselor to President Nixon (a ro...
02/10/2025

Clark Mollenhoff (1921-91) was a Pulitzer Prize-wining political reporter and special counselor to President Nixon (a role in which he was said to be uncomfortable). After a career as Washington bureau chief for the Des Moines Register, a newspaper far more influential than its location or circulation hinted, in 1976 he became a journalism professor at Washington and Lee. Among his 12 books were sharply critical political biographies of Presidents Ford and Carter.

Black History Month. A long-time, universally well-regarded funeral director, J.B. Lewis Jr., known to everyone as Benny...
02/10/2025

Black History Month. A long-time, universally well-regarded funeral director, J.B. Lewis Jr., known to everyone as Benny, was a city councilman from 1969 to 1982 and Lexington’s vice mayor. But here’s the big deal: He was one-third of the public-sector triumvirate that turned Lexington from a rundown, unattractive town you'd be happy to whiz past on the interstate into the amazing, beautiful, authentic, economically and socially vibrant village it is today. (His fellow visionaries in city government: Mayor Chuck Phillips and City Manager John Doane.) As usual, the private sector was key, and the whole organized effort was the brainchild of Historic Lexington Foundation.

July 6, 2024 — Northern Rockbridge. Photo by Chris Fox. Don't despair.
02/09/2025

July 6, 2024 — Northern Rockbridge. Photo by Chris Fox. Don't despair.

The Rev. Henry W. McLaughlin (1869-1950) became pastor at New Providence Presbyterian in 1909, bringing a pro-farmer pol...
02/08/2025

The Rev. Henry W. McLaughlin (1869-1950) became pastor at New Providence Presbyterian in 1909, bringing a pro-farmer political perspective with him. “He knew something of the great gulf separating many in the church who were large landowners from people in the community who were tenants,” according to a profile on his retirement in 1946. He pressed the congregation to consider Rockbridge a target for missionary zeal, no less than overseas. He brought medical services to Brownsburg and even helped start the local bank in order to give poor farmers a better opportunity to establish credit. He’s buried in the New Providence cemetery.

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