Projects

Members of the Historical Society, led by Sandy Stowe, continue to compile data from the cemeteries in Madison County. The project was begun by Earl H. Estes, Jr. in the early 1980’s. He later passed his collection on to Sandy, who had already begun her own documentation for the Society. Last year we were fortunate to obtain the help of Mary Wright to begin incorporating all of this data into our FileMaker Pro database program on the museum computer. Plans are to print a booklet of the old, inactive and fast disappearing graveyards in the county.

There will be two research notebooks kept at the museum which will be available to the public. One will be an index of all people buried in Madison County with dates and location and the other notebook will be an index of all cemeteries with location, short history and a list of those buried there. These notebooks will be updated periodically. All of the data will be on the computer at the Museum with CD’s of the data available for sale on request.

If you have information about a Madison County cemetery (even a single burial) that you suspect the Historical Society does not have information on, please contact the Society so that as complete a history of burials in the county can be kept for the historical record.

In 2005 the Virginia Genealogical Society awarded a grant of $3000 to the Society for the purpose of hiring personnel to give advice as to how best to organize, store, and retrieve artifacts in the Society’s collection. This advice was provided in a final report by Edward Gaynor and Ellen Welch of the University of Virginia Library System. As the result of a special appeal for funds in late 2005, society members and others donated more than $3000 toward implementation of the report’s recommendations, which included the purchase of appropriate hardware and software, as well as proper storage materials such as acid-free paper and storage boxes. The FileMakerPro computer program was chosen for creating a database of the Society’s archival materials. Josh Kitchens, archivist at the Germanna Foundation, helped with data input.

The Society’s archives are now stored in two places. The storage room off the research room at the Arcade houses those items not affected by changes in temperature and humidity. All other items are being boxed in acid-free boxes and placed on shelves in the lower level of the Kemper Residence. The purchase of these shelves was made possible by a matching grant of $250 from the Virginia Genealogical Society in October 2006. Jane Volchansky is primarily responsible for the archives.

Exhibits at the Arcade include the Rapidan Railroad, Civil War items, old ink wells, old toys, Madison-Made children’s chairs, Before the Park pictures and many Indians artifacts. Our newest exhibit is the Russ Myers Tribute which includes his Rhythm bones collection and other memorabilia, a Memory Notebook created by his wife Wilma and a DVD which can be watched on our new player.

The Slave Quarters Restoration Project

Restoration of the Kemper outbuildings began in 1999 with a grant from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. This grant allowed us to have architectural evaluation and restoration estimates for the law office and the slave quarters. At that time the law office was being used as a county office and was in fairly good shape, although modified in its interior structure. The slave quarters was used for storage and was in bad shape, with extensive termite damage to its logs. A fundraising campaign was begun and money was raised from local contributions and from a grant. The amount was insufficient to handle the difficult problems of the slave quarters and therefore was used to restore the law office. That restoration was completed in 2003, and that small building, office to Governor Kemper and Judge McMullan, is now part of the tours of the Kemper Residence.

In 2005 interior bracing was placed in the slave quarters because of its fragile condition. Fund raising for its restoration was initiated in 2007 with the Kemper Gala, a dinner on the lawn. Following this the Historical Society appealed to the local, community for support and applied to private foundations for grants. In late 2008 a grant was received from the Richard and Caroline Gwathmey Memorial Trust. This, along with the funds raised locally, was just sufficient to restore the slave quarters, except for its chimney which had been removed several decades ago. Joe Wayner, restoration contractor from Orange and the advisor on the law office restoration, agreed to help us again by overseeing this project. He recommended Craig Jacobs, proprietor of Salvagewrights Ltd., as the person most knowledgeable about log structures. Mr. Jacobs agreed to undertake the work. Ann Miller, well-known architectural historian, and again a veteran of the law office restoration, agreed to advise us on this project as well. Due to the advanced state of damage to the logs, the restoration would require dismantling and replacement of deteriorated logs with sound ones, while retaining all usable original parts. Because the Kemper property is under easement to the Department of Historic Resources application was made to them for permission to proceed with this restoration. DHR gave its permission and this past summer the restoration work began.

Mr. Jacobs with his team of Stephen Nash and Paul Crocker systematically began the dismantling. All parts were labeled with metal tags and photographed in situ. Siding, doors and windows were removed. The roof, whose basic structure was sound, was lifted by forklift and placed in the parking lot of the Health Department. The logs were then removed along with the intact floor boards, revealing that there had never been an adequate foundation to the building and that at some point it had been jacked up and the lower two courses of logs replaced. Next Carole Nash, archaeologist with James Madison University, came with a team of archaeological volunteers, and sifted the top layers of soil in the cabin site. Shards, pieces of metal and some early buttons were found. Dr.Nash is evaluating these at JMU and will have them on display eventually in an exhibit at the slave quarters. When the archaeologists were finished Brent Ryder and his cousin, Charles Ryder, built a sound foundation, using period bricks from the property and lime mortar. The soil removed for the foundation was sifted by another archaeologist, Ray Ezell, who discovered, along with some shards and metal pieces, an early clay marble.

Logs from a Madison County cabin of about the same age as the slave quarters and scheduled for demolition were used by Mr. Jacobs in reconstruction. Once the logs were assembled and secure on the new foundation the roof was lifted back into place and the original windows, doors, siding, floor boards and moldings were replaced, supplemented, where necessary, with period material. Volunteers from the Historical Society under the guidance of Craig Jacobs and Stephen Nash did the caulking. The tin roof, which was in bad shape, was replaced with a more appropriate roof of cedar shakes. The soil under the cabin and the first two courses of logs were treated with a termite preventative.

With this phase of the restoration now complete the building will be included in the tours of the property and will house exhibits of its method of construction and of the artefacts found in and under it.

The Historical Society will now attempt to raise funds, an estimated $6,900, for reconstruction of the chimney. Fortunately there is an excellent photograph of the chimney. Nineteenth century bricks will be used for it. Contributions toward its reconstruction, which are tax-deductible, will be greatly appreciated.