The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has approved nine new historical markers, one of which will be in Botetourt County to recognize the county’s connection to explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
The marker, whose location is not yet determined, will call attention to multiple ways in which Lewis and Clark were tied to Botetourt, where the county seat Fincastle was often a stopping-off point for western travelers in the early 1800s.
The marker will read:
American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were friends of Botetourt County native William Preston, Jr., and spent time in the county. Clark met his future wife, Julia Hancock, of Santillane, during a visit in the early 1800s. After their expedition to the Pacific Ocean from 1803 to 1806, Lewis and a group of Mandan Indians passed through Botetourt County on their way to Washington, D.C., and Clark was given a congratulatory address from citizens in the Town of Fincastle. Clark was in Botetourt County when he received his commission as a brigadier general of militia for the Louisiana Territory in 1807. He also got married in the county the following year. In 1810, the writer and future financier Nicholas Biddle met with Clark in Fincastle before editing the official narrative of the expedition.
The other markers approved this week are in the counties of Chesterfield, Loudoun, Lancaster and Dinwiddie; and in the cities of Richmond, Newport News and Norfolk.
Here’s the full list with the official language that will appear on each marker:
First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred
First Baptist Church Bermuda Hundred traces its origins to 1850 and was formally organized ca. 1866. The Rev. Curtis W. Harris, a Civil Rights leader, became pastor here in 1959. The church stands on the former central marketplace of Bermuda Hundred, which became one of Virginia’s official ports in 1691. Transatlantic slave ships brought thousands of enslaved Africans here to be sold. When demand for labor surged in the newly settled southern Piedmont after about 1750, this became one of Virginia’s largest slave auction sites. Most enslaved Africans who disembarked here, including many children, were marched to tobacco plantations in the interior, where planters profited from their labor.
Sponsor: Chesterfield Historical Society of Virginia
Locality: Chesterfield County
Proposed Location: 4601 Bermuda Hundred Road
Old Carolina Road
A Native American trade route that traversed Virginia, linking the Potomac River with the Carolinas, passed by here. By the mid-1750s, this “Carolina Road” had become an important southward migration route for settlers of European descent, who crossed the Potomac at Noland’s Ferry 3.5 miles northeast of here. Like many other colonial roads, its path often shifted, but its general corridor corresponds to modern US Route 15. During the Revolutionary War and Civil War, the Carolina Road facilitated troop movements through this area. In May 1776, Thomas Jefferson traveled this route to Philadelphia, where he attended the Second Continental Congress and drafted the Declaration of Independence.
Sponsor: Lucketts Ruritan Club
Locality: Loudoun County
Proposed Location: Lucketts Community Center, Lucketts Road just east of US 15
Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church
Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church, originally several blocks east of here, was dedicated on 18 April 1875 to serve an area of the Sheep Hill community later known as Carver. The Rev. William Troy, a founder of the church and its first pastor, was a freeborn man of color from Virginia who, as a resident of Canada before the Civil War, had become a prominent abolitionist associated with the Underground Railroad. On the church’s property stood the Moore Street Industrial Institution, a school for Black students. Church member Virginia E. Randolph (1870-1958) became widely known as an educational innovator through her work in Henrico County’s schools. The congregation moved here in 1908.
Sponsor: Moore Street Missionary Baptist Church
Locality: City of Richmond
Proposed Location: 1408 W. Leigh Street
The Garvey Movement in Newport News
Marcus Garvey founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1914 and launched its sixth division, or branch, in Newport News in 1918. The UNIA, which expanded to hundreds of divisions internationally, promoted Pan-Africanism, Black economic independence, and racial pride and separatism. The branch in Newport News, where Garvey’s message resonated with maritime and industrial laborers, was among the largest. Garvey spoke near here at the Dixie Theatre and at First Baptist Church in Newport News in 1919 to raise funds for the UNIA’s Black Star Line, a steamship company. Audience members were among the earliest and most enthusiastic investors. The UNIA was in decline by the 1930s.
Sponsor: City of Newport News
Locality: City of Newport News
Proposed Location: Intersection of 23rd Street and Jefferson Avenue
Attucks Theatre
The Attucks Theatre, known as the “Apollo of the South,” was built in 1919 in Norfolk’s thriving Black business district. It was financed, constructed, and operated by African Americans and was designed by Black architect Harvey Johnson. Named for Crispus Attucks, regarded as the first casualty of the American Revolution, the theatre was a venue for concerts, movies, plays, and community events. Performers here included Ruth Brown, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dizzy Gillespie. Rooms upstairs served as offices for Black professionals. The theatre, known as the Booker T. from 1934 until it closed in 1955, was listed in the Green Book, a guide for Black travelers. It reopened in 2004 after renovations.
Sponsor: City of Norfolk
Locality: City of Norfolk
Proposed Location: 1010 Church Street
AKA Upsilon Omega
On 24 Oct. 1925, Upsilon Omega became Richmond’s first chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., the first Greek-letter organization founded by Black women. This graduate chapter, following the sorority’s principles of scholarship, leadership, and service, focused on supporting students in public schools. Inaugural chapter president Dr. Zenobia Gilpin battled racial inequities in health care and organized clinics in Black churches that were emulated elsewhere. Other members included Janet Ballard, international president of AKA, and Dr. Grace Pleasants, the first Black national program director of the Girl Scouts of the USA. The chapter began meeting at Fifth Baptist Church in the 1980s.
Sponsor: Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Upsilon Omega Chapter
Locality: City of Richmond
Proposed Location: 1415 W. Cary Street
Brookvale High School
Lancaster Co. opened Brookvale High School to serve Black students in 1959, five years after the U.S. Supreme Court declared public school segregation unconstitutional. The building replaced the old A. T. Wright High School. The Crusaders Political and Social Club, a civil rights organization, met here frequently. In 1969 the Brookvale Warriors won the last state baseball championship overseen by the Virginia Interscholastic Association, the league for Black schools. Lancaster Co. fully desegregated its schools in the fall of 1969, and the Brookvale building became an intermediate school. Brookvale’s last principal, Dr. Elton Smith, later became the first Black public school superintendent in VA.
Sponsor: Save Brookvale History
Locality: Lancaster County
Proposed Location: 36 Primary School Circle
Dr. King at Mount Level Baptist Church
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke at Mount Level Baptist Church on 28 March 1962 during a “People to People” tour of communities in southern Virginia. King and other officials of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference made stops between Hopewell and Lynchburg, addressing crowds and going door-to-door to encourage voter registration and to recruit civil rights workers. The Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker, King’s chief of staff and a former pastor of Mount Level, planned the visit to this church, where King spoke to a full house about the importance of voting as a pathway to equality and justice for all. King also made a stop in the Rocky Branch community of Dinwiddie County.
Sponsor: Dinwiddie County
Locality: Dinwiddie County
Proposed Location: 14920 Courthouse Road