Monday we visited our last stop in Kentucky, Hindman Settlement School. Hindman was started by two DAR members in the early 1900s in the Appalachian area. It was a residential school up until the last few decades, meaning the students lived there. Now Hindman specializes in dyslexia, sending teachers out into the surrounding area schools and hosts a 5 week summer program. They also have a foodways program, teaching the locals how to grow their own food and how to prepare it or preserve it.
I nabbed this picture from the internet because this sign is on the side of a narrow road and it was raining, which meant it was not the best place to stop our big rig and take a photo!
National Society Daughters of the American Revolution still supports this school, there were DAR logos all over the place
Not long after this, we made it to Virginia!
Tuesday we went to the Booker T. Washington National Monument. These are the photos you get when you ask your co-pilot to snap a photo and he wasn't paying attention as we're driving by. J is learning to be a "drive by photographer" though!
The exhibits were amazing and titled under the following: Born Here, Lived Here, Enslaved Here, Dreamed Here, Freed Here. This is a taste of what one of the exhibits was like:
You would pick a ball and decide who did the chore and put it in the appropriate column.
Then you could open the door and see how it really went.
Wednesday we headed to Appamattox
Our destination was the NPS site, where the surrender of the Civil War took place.
This is the courthouse, which is now the visitor center, but it is NOT where the surrender took place
The actual place where the surrender took place was here, the McLean home...
...In this room
We headed to Rubert Russa Moton Museum, a Civil Rights site
This was the actual school where a girl named Barbara Jones started a protest that became one of the 5 court cases that led to Brown v. Board of Education. The opening film was pretty interesting. It started by watching the film on the side wall, then in the middle of the film, the stage drapes opened and it was like we were part of the assembly where the students decided to take action.
Thursday we headed to Petersburg National Battlefield in the pouring rain
This little stubby cannon was one of the many used during the battles
We headed out to walk one of the trails in the rain, dodging the huge puddles
This was one of the earthworks from Battery 5, lots of cannons out there
We walked around the trail to find the "Dictator". This was at least 5 feet tall, it was just enormous.
We drove through the park to find The Crater. Petersburg was a major turning point in the Civil War, it was a supply hub for the Southern states. One campaign to end the war was the digging of a tunnel under Confederate lines, it was filled with explosives and set off in mid-1864. A couple hundred Confederates died, but it didn't improve Union outlook on the war
This is the leftovers of the massive crater. What really ended the war was that in early 1865 the railroad lines to Petersburg were cut off by the Union armies, cutting off the Confederate supplies. It wasn't long after that that Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox.
Our next stop was Berkeley Plantation, we drove down a very long drive, surrounded by trees, to park right in front of the house
Berkeley was the birthplace of Benjamin Harrison, the signer of the Declaration of Independence and also William Henry Harrison, 9th president. Side note: William's grandson, Benjamin, was the 23rd president but he never lived there.
We got a really cool looking entry ticket
We had a great tour and learned a few interesting facts--the first "Taps" was played here and the very first Thanksgiving was on the property, in 1619--one year before the Thanksgiving in Massachusetts.
It was part of the English settlers' charter stated that they needed to give a prayer of thanks when they landed. They did so in 1619, 1620, and 1621 and then were attacked by the natives and the settlers dispersed after that.
Friday we went to see the state capitol in Richmond. It was designed by Jefferson
It has one of the most lifelike statues of George Washington, sculpted to be as tall as Washington and using a life mask to get his features correct
Outside on the capitol grounds was a Civil Rights monument with Barbara Jones featured (statue of a girl with her arm up, in the center, from the R. R. Moton High School)
We headed to the Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site next
There were several buildings on the corner and leading down to Maggie's actual home that were owned by the National Park Service.
This was her home. It was hard to get a photo of it, I was allowed to take photos inside, but they just don't do justice. FYI, most National Historic Sites and many Monuments are free to visit. The tour was really interesting--she was a black woman who owned her own bank, her own home, empowered the community around her, and ALL before death in 1934.
We stopped by, but didn't tour, the White House of the Confederacy--smack dab in the middle of Richmond next to business buildings and a hospital.
Saturday we went to Monticello. It was amazing, of course. Designed by Jefferson, situated on a mountain top, lots of amazing things to see inside, but no photos allowed, so this is what you get
You can also see the University of Virginia from Monticello, founded by Jefferson.
One cool invention, Jefferson had a week clock hanging over his front door, only had to wind it up once a week. The days of the week were marked on the wall, but he had to cut a hole in the floor so the balls could hang down low enough to mark off Saturday (see the label behind the pole?)
Only two miles away was James Monroe's Highland. Also no photos allowed inside.
In the last few years they did some more research and discovered that the building that stands today was not the one Monroe lived in, the one he lived in burned down after he sold it. The stones out front in the bottom left of the picture are where the original foundation was
The white building was the guest house when Monroe lived there, the yellow building was built after the first one burned down.
Today we attended the Charlottesville 1st Ward, Waynesboro Virginia Stake
Then we headed to Montpelier, James Madison's home. Still no photos allowed inside
We got a great tour and even got to go upstairs, to the room where Madison drafted the Constitution
We visited the cemetery to see his grave before we headed out.
A lot of the sites, Monticello and Montpelier especially, have a lot more exhibits and displays on slavery and the disparity between the slave owners and the slaves. There was a fairly new display on Sally Hemings at Monticello too.
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