After the ordeal of the Barnes family had come to pass, the citizens of Lynchburg decided to take up an offering for the beaten and battered Eliza Ann Hendershot. The exact amount of money raised by the town is never mentioned, however by all accounts the sum was large enough to risk one’s reputation over. Once the monetary collection was raised, the next step was to find the parent or parents of the poor, displaced child.
Read MoreOlive Cardwell was a local folk artist known for her wire armature dolls depicting plantation life. Born in 1897 as the youngest of 11 children, Cardwell spent the first nine years of her life on her father’s Appomattox plantation, named Wildway. After this, the family relocated to a Bedford farm on a rural road that would later become Mimosa Drive in the Boonsboro area of Lynchburg. Cardwell lived the rest of her 93 years in that home, but she never forgot her experiences on the plantation and recreated them in her artwork
Read MoreA strange family. Torture. Mistaken identity. A mystery that’s never been solved. These are some usual ingredients in ghost tales. However, a story from Lynchburg’s past contains all these elements and was pulled straight from the pages of history.
As Halloween creeps around the corner, here’s a story to send shivers down the spine of even the least superstitious reader.
Phillip Pleasant “Ples” Whiteley is one of only three known African American Union veterans buried in Old City Cemetery, and the only one of these men that escaped slavery by joining the Union Army
Read MoreAs principal of Dunbar High School from 1938 to 1968, Mr. Clarence W. “Dick” Seay was a leading representative for the African American community in Lynchburg. He spoke out against injustices within the education system and encouraged black schools to hire black educators, administration, personnel, and to seek black leaders for the School Board. Seay ended his career with Dunbar in 1968 after leading the school to be one of the top rated black high schools in the segregated South.
Read MoreFew things are more quintessentially “Lynchburg” than batteaux and packet boats. These vessels traveled up and down the James River, and later James River & Kanawha Canal, connecting Lynchburg to the wider world. African Americans played key roles in operating these boats, which drove Lynchburg’s economy until the advent of the railroad.
Read MoreAugust 18, 1920, marked the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted women the right to vote. In Virginia the Nineteenth Amendment was not ratified until 1952. However, the delayed passage did not inhibit women from voting in the 1920 presidential election between Republican candidate Warren Harding and Democratic candidate James Cox. Twelve women in Lynchburg paid poll taxes and registered to vote on the first day of eligibility.
Read MoreThomas Jefferson Anderson was born to slave parents in Amherst County. He moved to Lynchburg and lived on Taylor Street. In 1885, he was elected from the Third Ward to Lynchburg City Council, where he served two terms on the Alms House, Cemetery, and Sanitary Affairs committees.
Read MoreWhen talking about the invention of radio, the first name that comes up is always Guglielmo Marconi, who began experimenting in 1895. While it is true that Marconi was very successful (by 1899 he had established wireless connections between Britain, France, and several prominent islands), the moniker “The Father of Radio” is not one hundred percent true. In fact, the first known occurrence of wireless aerial communication was conducted in the Blue Ridge Mountains just outside of Lynchburg by Dr. Mahlon Loomis in 1866, a full eight years before Marconi was even born.
Read MoreMusic was a healing component in the struggle for equality for African Americans during the Civil Rights movement. In Lynchburg, access to that music over the radio was difficult to obtain. Robert Goins, otherwise known as “DJ Mad Lad” was instrumental in providing an outlet for enjoyment.
Read MoreLynchburg, Virginia, 1963–In the heat of the Civil Rights movement, Thomas Wansley, a sixteen-year-old black teenager was convicted of two counts of rape and one count of robbery by a Lynchburg Corporation Court jury. Wansley was sentenced to death for each rape charge and given an additional twenty years for the robbery charge. This conviction would set off a chain of events that would last for more than ten years.
Read MoreImpactful and praiseworthy is the life of Amaza Lee Meredith. She was born in small-town Lynchburg with aspirations and accomplishments—alive and posthumously, that extended beyond the boundaries of a small-town and influenced fields including education, art, and architecture.
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