W. Scott Smith

The Bedford Pedestrian and Bicycle Plan provides a prioritized guide to the town’s governing body on improving bicycling and walking in the town. The implementation of the plan will contribute to a healthier, safer, and dynamic community. The Town of Bedford’s Comprehensive Plan—adopted in June of 2017—made the key recommendation for the development of a “Bicycle and Pedestrian Transportation Plan” to identify existing and potential infrastructure such as sidewalks, greenways, and multimodal pathways.

In addition, the comprehensive plan sets the ambitious goal of the town “examining its ability to install sidewalks on every public street.” Excluding the road segments associated with U.S. 460, 37% of the town’s public streets presently have sidewalk infrastructure. This remarkable percentage proves that pedestrian facilities have been identified as important elements of the town’s transportation network in the past.

This project included extensive community input through a public survey and public meeting as well as an analysis of existing conditions. The prioritized recommendations presented in this plan will improve the walking and bicycling capacity and connectivity throughout the Town of Bedford and increase transportation options to residents of all ages. These investments will build upon the robust sidewalk network that Town citizens already enjoy.

The Norwood-Wingina Historic Resources Survey, conducted in 2012-13, was funded by the County of Nelson and the Cost Share Program of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR). The survey was modeled on DHR’s “Guidelines for Conducting Survey in Virginia for Cost Share Projects” (October 2011) and was undertaken by HistoryTech, a preservation planning firm based in Lynchburg.

The project was administered by Kristin Kirchen, DHR Architectural Historian, Carey Jones, DHR Architectural Survey Coordinator, Marc Wagner, Director of DHR’s Capital Region Office. The Steering Committee also included Maureen Kelley, Director of Economic Development and Tourism for Nelson County along with Becky Howard and Bob Carter of the Nelson County Historical Society. The survey team members included W. Scott Smith and Emily Patton Smith of HistoryTech. Scott Smith served as the project administrator and principal investigator.

The County of Nelson issued an RFQ (Request for Quotations) from consultants on July 30, 2012. Responses to the RFQ were received by August 15, and were evaluated by county staff. The selection of HistoryTech’s proposal was presented to the Nelson County Board of Supervisors at its September 11, 2012 meeting.

Project planning commenced in the fall of 2012 and included an initial Steering Committee meeting on October 17, 2012. An initial public meeting was held on November 15, 2012, and fieldwork was conducted from December 2012 through May 2013. A second public meeting was held on June 10, 2014.

The Amherst County Historic Resources Survey, conducted in 2009-10, was funded by the County of Amherst and the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR) and was administered jointly by DHR and Sweet Briar College‟s Tusculum Institute. The survey was undertaken by HistoryTech (formerly The Antiquaries), a preservation planning firm based in Lynchburg, with assistance from Landmark Preservation Associates of Lexington. The survey team members included Jesse Adams-Doolittle, Sandra F. Esposito, and W. Scott Smith of HistoryTech/The Antiquaries. Scott Smith served as the project administrator and principal investigator. J. Daniel Pezzoni of Landmark Preservation Associates wrote the project report. The main objective of the survey was to broaden the range of historic resources recorded in DHR‟s database by documenting 275 mostly previously unidentified resources. The survey resulted in the documentation of a total 292 resources, primarily houses and farm complexes but also mills, stores, churches, and other building types. Survey was conducted in areas of the county outside National Forest lands, comprising approximately 75% of the county‟s 475 square miles. Digital and hard-copy survey files were produced for DHR and the locality and two potential historic districts—Sandidges and Pedlar Mills—were proposed as eligible for listing in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

At the turn of the century, following decades of urbanization and mechanization throughout the United States, Ernest Thompson Seton declared that the “whole nation is turning toward the outdoor life, seeking in it the physical regeneration needed for continued national existence.” While it was an overstatement that the “whole nation” was turning to the outdoors, men like Seton and his peer Daniel Carter Beard, who would both work to eventually form in 1910 the Boy Scouts of America, knew that more Americans needed exposure to the outdoors as a way of re-centering the country’s soul.

As families seeking employment moved from rural areas into cities at an increasing rate in the late 19th century, the dynamics of childhood began to change. Male role models left home each day to work in factories, and, for those families living in urban tenements, there was little outdoor work to be done by the boys of the household. These changes led to idle boys roaming neighborhoods seeking any sort of activity, whether positive or not. Seton was fearful that this idleness would lead to a national leadership vacuum as these boys grew into men, but he did not blame the boys, instead saying that the youth of America did not need reforming, but rather “protection from deformation.” To Seton, Beard, and others, only the solitude of the outdoors, whether in a backyard or in the backcountry, could provide the requisite protection of the ill-fated generation while also providing a neutral space in which to “teach boys character in a way that they like to be taught,” said Robert Baden-Powell, author of Scouting for Boys and founder of the Scouting program in the United Kingdom.

This approach was not lost on twenty-three-year-old Frank Chipman Wood, who worked as the assistant superintendent of playgrounds in Washington, D.C., where his department led a campaign to encourage children to play in provided spaces rather than on the street. In Washington, he was actively involved in Scouting, serving as assistant commissioner for the city and as director of Camp Archibald Butt on the Chesapeake Bay. Because of this, it is not surprising that he brought the Scouting program with him when he was hired to become the director of athletics for Lynchburg City Schools in the fall of 1913. Within a year, Wood formed Troop 1 and became its first Scoutmaster.

By early 1920, three Lynchburg troops were operating and two additional units were in formation, necessitating the need for the creation of a local umbrella organization (called a “council” in Scout parlance). In April, the Lynchburg Council of the BSA was officially chartered. The council’s first executive was Adam Jones Himmelsbach (1881-1972), who previously served as assistant Scout executive of the Chester County Council and director of Camp Lafayette in Pennsylvania.

In celebration of the Order of the Arrow’s centennial anniversary in 2015, Tutelo Lodge has produced a comprehensive history of the Order in our area. The 313-page book features text and images describing the development of early camps operated by Blue Ridge and Piedmont Area Councils as well as information on Ne-Pah-Win/Koo Koo Ku Hoo 161 and Powhatan 456, the two Order of the Arrow lodges that preceded Tutelo.

ISBN-13: 978-1-938205-22-4

Camp Suhling in Amherst County, Virginia was operated by the Lynchburg YWCA in the early twentieth century. Preview available at lynchsferry.com. Entirety of article available in magazine.

Formed in 1913, Lynchburg's chapter of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) quickly determined a need for an outdoor leadership, recreation, and health education experience for its teenage members. Following the lead of the national YWCA organization, Lynchburg’s branch focused primarily on city-dwelling, working young women in order to provide them with the “guidance of middle-class values and the protective embrace of a Christian environment.” By the time the Lynchburg branch had formed, the Y.W.C.A.’s efforts expanded to include the improvement of poor working conditions in factories.

Many of Lynchburg’s industrial operations were well-suited (in the minds of corporate leaders) for female employees, and women soon became a common sight at factories including Craddock-Terry Shoe Company and the Lynchburg Cotton Mill. The onset of World War I hastened Lynchburg-area women’s entry into the workforce. Historian Philip Lightfoot Scruggs noted that “…in Lynchburg there were no true war boom industries. Existing ones operated full time and overtime and many women were employed to replace men.”  In June of 1918, The News announced that “Lynchburg banks have been forced to employ women to take the place of men who have gone to war.” A few days later, it reported that twenty girls between the ages of seventeen and twenty had volunteered to work at the Jobbers Overall Factory.

By this time, the YWCA began more overt programs to advocate for the rights of working women, forming “Industrial Girls” clubs and other programs (by 1934, the national organization officially endorsed collective bargaining rights). During the week of July 7, 1914, twenty of the YWCA’s Industrial Girls group camped on the farm of Mr. P.C. Edmunds near Elon in Amherst County under the supervision of Misses Ethel Eaton and Hazel Pettingell in order to test the idea of building leadership and assertiveness in an outdoor setting. The one-week experiment was apparently a success, and summer programs were subsequently conducted for a short time at the YMCA’s “Treasure Island” on the James River.

The Krise Building, located at the west corner of Ninth and Main Streets, has been a landmark of downtown Lynchburg for over a century. While a great deal is known about the building’s tenants over the years (including Bowen Jewelry and First Colony), research conducted in conjunction with the current renovation of the building has uncovered some surprising information about its construction in the early 20th century.

To local history buffs, the name John Hook typically conjures images of a greedy Scottish merchant being laughed out of the courthouse in New London as a result of Patrick Henry’s oratory in the famous “Beef Trial” of 1789.
Ann Smart Martin, Chipstone Professor of Art History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, takes a fresh look at the life of this successful Bedford and Franklin County businessman. Martin has been researching John Hook (1746-1808) and other Virginia merchants for decades. Her vast knowledge of material culture and eighteenth-century consumer habits bring Hook’s business records to life...

Through the eyes of merchant William Brown, Smith examines the challenges and successes experienced by sojourning Scottish merchants in Virginia during the Early National Period. The study discusses methods by which merchants sought to influence their customers as well as Scots' carefully-crafted attempts to integrate with Virginian society. Those who mastered these techniques achieved wealth not possible in their native land.

Over the past several decades, the United States military has been involved in an increasing number of overseas operations that necessitate some degree of counterinsurgency (or COIN) strategies, most recently in Iraq and Afghanistan. The successes and failures of the military in countering insurgencies, combined with swiftly-changing dynamics in the global theatre, have driven the United States to evaluate and strengthen its COIN strategies and tactics. This paper reviews the events of the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion, the nation's first real test of federal authority against an internal insurgency, and evaluates the government's response in relation to current best practices in counterinsurgency.

Just as Rudyard Kipling bridged the gap between British and Indian culture through his writings, the war correspondents and artists depicted in The Light that Failed concurrently celebrated and lamented the liminality of their existence amid the civilian and military worlds. Acceptance by both cultures was critical to their sense of fulfillment and identity, but a degree of exclusivity was necessary in order to maintain their image as adventurous "larger-than-life" purveyors of truth through tales of battle, glory, and empire.

Co-authored with Carey Jones, Blake McDonald, Marc Wagner (Virginia Department of Historic Resources).

The Norwood-Wingina Rural Historic District encompasses approximately 2,930 acres of pastoral land along the James River in southern Nelson County. Occupied first for thousands of years by the Monacans and their ancestors, the area was first settled by Anglo- and African American Virginians during the second quarter of the 18th century. The newcomers established a number of large plantations along the rich river bottomland, and by the late 18th century, increased tobacco production in the area spurred the development of a warehouse and town (known as New Market and later Norwood) at the confluence of the James and Tye Rivers. By
the second quarter of the 19th century, considerable improvements to navigation along the James and Tye Rivers were well underway, the most significant being the James River & Kanawha Canal, which prompted the development of a second village (called Hardwicksville or Wingina)
at the eastern end of the district. Following the Civil War, railroad tracks were laid along the canal, and the two communities became whistle stops between Richmond and Lynchburg. As reliance on automobiles increased and railroad activity decreased into the middle of the 20th century, the area slowly regained much of its former agricultural character, with fewer retail and service businesses in operation. The district’s diverse collection of architectural styles and types of historic resources includes individually significant properties such as Montezuma and Soldier’s Joy (both listed in the National Register in 1980), Rock Cliff (listed in 2015) and Arrowhead (listed in 2019). Historic churches and stores, agricultural buildings, and railroad related resources are further illustrative of the district’s historic patterns of development. For these reasons, the Norwood-Wingina Rural Historic District is locally significant under Criterion A in the areas of Commerce and Transportation, and under Criterion C in the area of
Architecture. The district’s period of significance begins in 1775 with the development of the Union Hill property and ends in 1965, when passenger rail service in the area ceased. Significant dates include 1794, when the first tobacco inspection facility, called the Tye River Warehouse, was completed; 1824, when canal engineer Claudius Crozet created a map of the James River & Kanawha Canal’s proposed rout as it passed through the New Market/Norwood area; 1865, when federal troops under command of General Philip Sheridan damaged the canal to limit
Confederate movements; 1870, when a major flood caused additional damage to the canal and swept away several buildings in New Market; and 1881, when the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad opened. The historic district’s areas of significance also include Education and Science, for which Arrowhead is individually listed in the National Register, and Health/Medicine, for which Rock Cliff is individually listed.

Constructed circa 1795 for Major James Woods (1761-1832), Three Chimneys is one of the earliest extant brick houses in Nelson County. The Georgian house with Classical Revival modifications features Flemish bond brickwork, an unusual floor plan, and one of the most elaborate chimney pieces in the area. The property also has several extant outbuildings including an original kitchen constructed of brick laid in Flemish bond.
The Major James Woods House (Three Chimneys) has a period of significance ranging from 1795 to 1915, beginning with the approximate date of the house’s initial construction and ending with the period in which James Jeter Goodwin and Ressie Goodloe Goodwin added Classical Revival features to the house. It is locally significant under Criterion C as an excellent example of a late Georgian dwelling in Nelson County.