Sunday, October 7, 2012

You Can't Go Home Again

Old Plank Road in Spotsylvania, 1863


     During the summer of 1961, my father and my uncle Rolf built the house on Old Plank Road my family would live in for the next nine years (the house is still there, though much changed). My father would sometimes bring me along to "help" him. I do not remember doing much in the way of helping, of course. What I do remember is watching Rolf, from time to time, take out of  his pocket what I presumed to be candy, slice off a piece with his pocket knife and put it in his mouth. Oh, how I coveted that presumed treat and I worried him endlessly to share some with me until he at last consented to cut off a small portion for me. He did not call it candy; he called it "chaw," but I was too young to heed this subtle warning. Without a moment's hesitation I popped it in my mouth. More than half a century later, the ensuing thirty seconds remain among the most harrowing of my life.
     But this is not about Rolf or chewing tobacco. It is about ghosts, in a manner of speaking.

Broadside for Hopewell Nurseries

     Growing up on that stretch of Old Plank Road, about a half mile west of Harrison Road, I had no inkling then that we lived on what was once Hopewell Nursery, owned by Henry R. Robey. Robey's first advertisement appeared in 1832 in the Virginia Herald and he ran the nursery until his death in 1876. In the map above, Hopewell Nursery appears in the middle of the image between Plank Road and the unfinished railroad. In the handbill shown below, Robey's name appears as a candidate for justice of the peace. William A. Stephens, a friend of my great grandfather, ran for the board of supervisors. This handbill was kept with my great grandfather's papers.

List of candidates

     During the time leading up to and including the Chancellorsville battle, Robey's property was used, according to testimony given in his claim for damages, as a camp for Cobb's legion and for the Fourth Virginia Cavalry. A field hospital was set up there. Ordnance wagons and troop baggage trains were parked there. "For want of axes" needed to cut firewood, Confederate soldiers instead helped themselves to Robey's fencing in order to build fires. Hundreds of horses grazed freely on his land, eating up half the grass he would have otherwise cut for hay that year. One hundred years later my father and I roamed these fields and woods with a metal detector and brought home many buttons, bullets, bridle bits and similar camp detritus.
     But today I am not writing about relics or Henry Robey's troubles during the Civil War.
     In the years after the war, the Potomac, Fredericksburg and Piedmont Railroad was completed to the town of Orange. My great grandfather's saw mill supplied some of the railroad ties and fencing used for this effort. The trains used to make daily runs on these tracks until the 1930's.

1927 ticket for the PF&P Railroad

     In 1927 my great grandmother used this ticket to begin her trip to Georgia to attend a niece's graduation at Agnes Scott College. As you can see, "Robey" was the third stop after it left Fredericksburg on its way to Orange. The next stop was Screamersville (which was the old Chancellorsville post office and general store of my youth, where my sister and I obtained, at great personal expense, fireballs and wax lips and bubble gum and other needed supplies). From there the train proceeded to Alrich's corner, passed Welford furnace, Brock Road and then to the depot at the farm which had belonged to William A. Stephens. Great grandmother Row boarded the train there.
     As a boy growing up on what had been Henry Robey's land I remember being puzzled by the existence of train tracks which ran through the woods behind our house. I could not fathom how a train could have made its way through the second growth pine and oak trees, the blackberry bushes, the vines and the poison ivy.
     But, truly, I do not mean to wander down the old train tracks today. It is October and it is ghosts we are discussing, in a way.

Judy Sullivan

     In this picture taken of my mother in 1970 you see behind her what would have been Hopewell Nursery one hundred years earlier. Because it was still a working farm in 1970 it does not require much imagination to envision the previous existence of the nursery. Today, of course, it would be infinitely more difficult to see Hopewell in your mind's eye, as this landscape is now thickly dotted with the houses of Smoketree subdivision.
     But still there, among those houses and perhaps seen only by me, flit the ghosts of a distant past that remains close to my heart.
     Fifty years ago that land was farmed by Tommy and Ethel Byrne and their grandson Steve Kibler (now long departed from this life), who was my age. Steve and I and the Carver boys used to play in that field in summer and build snow forts in winter. We used to build dams in the creek in the shade of the sycamore by Old Plank Road. We shot broom straw arrows with home made bows. We built a club house among the hay bales in the barn.
     Gone, now. All gone.
     Between Route 3 and Old Plank Road, adjacent to Zoan Church, is a place known to most modern residents of Spotsylvania only as Royal Oaks subdivision. To this day, however, when I drive by there it is not those houses I see, but the spectral image of O.C. Zechiel's farm. Until his death in 1957 Mr. Zechiel raised beef cattle here and ran the W-Z Market in Fredericksburg. After he died his wife Hazel (a lovely woman) remained on the farm, which she rented out to Andrew Seay to graze cattle and to cut hay. In the summers we fished for perch and bass in her pond. In winter we hauled our sleds up the rise and then careened toward, and sometimes into, the creek. We boys used to clamber on the roof of the old slaughter house and play. I still have the scar where I gashed my leg on the rusted tin roof. Mrs. Zechiel used to pay me a dollar to sit in her orchard on Saturdays and shoot blue jays and other shoplifters out of her beloved cherry trees. I never told her that I would have gladly paid her the dollar for the privilege.
     Over the past several years, as I have researched and written about my people in Spotsylvania, I have had ample opportunity to contemplate the seismic changes that have occurred in my home county during my lifetime. These changes were inevitable and unavoidable, I suppose, and progress in its manifold forms is often irresistible. Within my limited ability, what I have tried to accomplish is to preserve in words and pictures that which has been swept away by change and progress. It may be as futile as trying to capture lightning in a bottle. But the now vanished people and places of old Spotsylvania deserve to be remembered. We are much the poorer if we do not make the attempt.
     A tree nursery occupied by the Confederate army. Abandoned railroad tracks deep in the woods near home. Boys playing in the creek in the shade of a sycamore. It is difficult for me to find the words to say what it means to me, so today I turn to one of the literary heroes of my youth, Thomas Wolfe:

     O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane end unto heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
    
    

41 comments:

  1. Pat, this is GREAT material. I am so delighted to read this newest chapter. I look forward to being able to walk this ground with you on your next visit, and see these spirits for which you mourn.

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  2. I just found your blog through an entry on the Fredericksburg Remembered blog and am thrilled to find it. I am up in New England but am of Southern ancestry, my widowed g g g grandfather lived in Spotsylvania Cty I am not sure where in 1860 with his two boys.

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    1. Thanks for reading, Sarah. Who was your Spotsylvania ancestor?

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  3. Hi Pat. I came to Spotsylvania in 1979 my husband however was born and raised off of Gordon Rd. He used to ride down what is now Rt.3 with his Uncle Curtis and milk cows and put up hay in the barn that is now Central Park. If you were around in the 1970s era you can remember how that area revolved from a gorgeous dairy farm to a golf course and now pavement, cars and retail. All in the name of "Progress". People will never know the beauty that land once was. Thank you for taking me even further back and sharing your families history!

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  4. This is the best piece you've written yet. I love the details of your other posts, but this one rings true for every child who ever waded in a creek, or fished in a pond, or climbed a particular tree in their own little ghost world.

    Are you gonna write a book, or what? :-)

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  5. Pat, I found your post most interesting. I have been trying to figure out some of your landmarks as I moved to Chancellorsville in 1961, when I was 5 years old. we bought the Hazel Grove farm which is what is now Presidential Resorts. I know exactly where the unfinished RR is, but I have never heard of Screamersville, or the Chancellorsville post office. Where was this located exactly?

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  6. Bert--If memory serves me, the old post office was about a half mile off Plank Road on Rt. 674.

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    1. Are you referring to 674 out near Stevensville, near Lignum? I don't know of a Rt. 674 in the Chancellorsville area.

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    1. About a half mile west of Tabernacle Church on Route 610 in Spotsylvania (Plank Road) Route 674 (Chancellor Road) takes off south and winds around until it meets up with Gordon Road.

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  8. I just located this through Eric Mink's blog. Henry Richard Robey, Sr. was my 3rd great grandfather … thanks!

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    1. Thank you, Mr. Robey. I am honored to hear from you.

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    2. Coming to visit briefly this Summer with my boys ... you & Eric Mink have provided very helpful reference material that I've been using to focus this visit.

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  9. I just discovered your blog and it's great!
    When I see old, abandoned houses, my mind almost always goes to "who lived here? What happened to them?" and you may actually be able to give me an answer for once! There's a very old red house, right at the intersection of Old Plank and Harrison. Did you happen to know the people who lived there, or was it already abandoned?

    Also, my family and I live in the Stonewall Estates subdivision, just before the Catharpin fork. Anything interesting about what this land was before it was developed?

    Your blog entries are so interesting. All the work you must surely put into your research is so appreciated. Thank you for doing it :)

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    1. Thank you for your kind words. When our school bus went by the house at Old Plank and Harrison 50 years ago, I seem to remember smoke coming from the chimney in the mornings. I will have to ask my sister if she remembers who lived there then. As to your second question, yes indeed there was some interesting doings at the site of Stonewall Estates 100 years ago. I discuss the historical significance of that area at http://spotsylvaniamemory.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-school-house-on-corner.html and at http://spotsylvaniamemory.blogspot.com/2013/01/the-fredericksburg-wilderness-telephone.html

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    2. I love reading this blog and hearing the history of the area I live in. I live in Enchanted Woods off of Chancellor Rd, can you tell me any history of that land before it was developed? My family has been going to the farm across Chancellor Rd from Harvestdale with the big green house to pick pumpkins the past several years and the husband was telling me the story of Screamersville and the railroad it was so interesting. I would love to hear about the land Enchanted Woods is on if you have any info on that. Thanks

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  10. Thank you so much! I can't wait to hear about the people in the red house, even if just to know their names, and I'm off to read about our neighborhood. I'm showing your blog to my husband tonight. He's a bit of a history buff so I know he'll really enjoy it.

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  12. I grew up in that area in the 70s. I remember Hudson's Store and used to play with her grandchildren. My grandmother used to live just up the road from us too but she grew up in the Parker area of Orange Co. I had the best time as a kid running and playing with all of the other kids along Old Plank Rd. I remember the old railroad line. You are correct, that was a beautiful place before my time and all of the development. My grandfather used to hunt rabbits on the farm where Chancellor Green subdivision is now. I can remember the first light you would hit going to Fredericksburg was at the old A&P, where Big Lots is now and all of the department stores being downtown. I would have loved to have seen that land 30 years before then!
    My grandparents used to own a dairy farm where part Fawn Lake is now...part of the old Wine farm. He used to tell me how pretty that farm was, I think his farm was about 250 acres. I think he regretted not switching over to a beef operation. My uncles still tell me how much work a dairy farm is.

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  13. I grew up in spotsylvania too! In the 60's

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  14. As always Pat, great reading. Only time I miss the home that was is when I read your blog. I catch glimpses of it when I'm home and in the Battlefield, but merely shadows of my minds eye. Thanks again.

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  15. Hello!

    I have been fascinated with Robey's nursery after finding an old catalog of his. I'm an heirloom apple orchardist and fruit explorer. By chance, do you know of any old fruit trees still standing in the area?

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    1. I regret to say that any trees that once grew in the Robey nursery have long since been eradicated by the extensive development of Spotsylvania County. I would be very interested to see the old catalog, if you can share it.

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  16. I do not care how many times you post the memories, I read each and every one with renewed interest. will bowler

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  17. I must say I really enjoy your blog having grown up in Spotsylvania and knowing some of the people appearing in the old photos.I lived in sight of Goshen Church from 1950 through 1968. Your blog brings back lots of memories. The Mrs.Tally you reference in other entries regarding the sawmills was my g g grandmother. My grandfather's brother owned the farm that is now Spotsy Mall and I recall visiting the farm when Rt.3 was a two lane road. Sad how things have changed.

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  18. I have found this blog very interesting and look forward to reading more in hopes of finding some kind of connection to my ancestry. After recent research and talking with my mom I have learned that my great uncle used to live over off of Rt. 612. Their house was right on the road and supposedly had a dairy farm behind it. Their names were Wyant. This was back in the 30's I have a picture of one the houses. The son kept the house for a while and it was still standing in the early 2000's.
    It has been great to read about the area. Thank you for sharing I would love to hear more if that name sounds familiar

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  19. I'm curious about something. My dad was pastor at Goshen church in the 50s and I remember going to a trash dump on Gordon Road that was right on the river. Does anyone remember exactly where it was? Maybe at Ni River water treatment site??

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    1. I have a home on my grandfathers farm and he used it. first road east of Lake Acres Subd. now called Mallard Dr or Rd not sure if the road had a name back then. My family attended Goshen and have lived here since 1935 and 4 other family members have homes on this farm.

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  20. I had Robey ancestry in New England. The VA Robeys and the New England Robeys are supposed to be kin by brothers, one who settled up North and one who settled in MD and VA. From there, they went everywhere, it seems. My ancestor was Dr. Stephen Robey Mason of IL and AR. Luv your blog about Spotsylvania and surrounds! Will have to get your book, too.

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  21. Hi Pat. My husband grew up in this area you described. The Fletcher family lived on the street directily in front of Hudson's store (@#$ can't think of the name!@#). Did you know the family? Will Fletcher sold Christmas trees every year. Which house was yours? Linda

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  22. Linda, we lived about 3/4 mile west of Hudson's store.

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  23. My father bought farm on Cherry Hill Hatchery Rd, Walnut Grove, in 1939 and we lived there on the registered guernsey dairy farm until they moved to land purchased from O.C. Zechiels and built their home on land they named Grantwood. It was later sold to man who had three sons, educated and each was given a parcel on which to engineer their subdivision, Royal Oaks being the nearest. Today VA South is located on farm, Walnut Grove and land on which I played is now a massive housing complex. Driving there this month, it is barely reconizeable as 'my old homeplace'!

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  24. Pat, how can I contact you? I recently moved to the area you write much about and I have some specific questions I wondered if you could assist with that may help me understand the area I live in now. I love the kind of history you write about and getting to know my new home here.

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  25. Hello Pat, I have photos of my grandmother in the garden in front of the house on Walnut Hill farm. The photos are 1900-1910. I am trying to find out where it is/was off of Plank Rd. Do you have an idea?

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    1. The Walnut Hill farm that I am familiar with was located on Old Plank Road about a 1/2 mile west of Tabernacle Methodist Church.

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  26. Thank you for the interesting information about the area we moved to in 1977, when only about three subdivisions existed in Spotsylvania County. I recognize many family names and have watched the beauty of this area become “little boxes on the hillside… little boxes all the same”. The description of your recollections is easily relatable.

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