There are a number of lovely, accessible greenspaces in and around Abingdon. The Urban Pathway, which begins near the Muster Grounds, passes through town by way of Depot Square, the Market Pavilion, and the grounds behind the Martha Washington Inn. It then proceeds alongside the railroad bed to the east side of town as far …
Category Archives: History
What Did People Do…? Conclusion
“Tannery Owner Adam Hickman built this Carpenter Gothic House as a wedding present for his daughter. The house has three steeply pitched front gables of varying sizes have bargeboards dripping with wooden icicles. Along with a large leaded bay window and a wraparound porch with sawn balustrades and custom columns, the house sports enough ornate …
What Did People Do in Old Abingdon; a closer look
Lewis Thomson Cosby’s entry about The Washington House and the venerable Tavern next door is succinct: “…known far and near as ‘The Washington House’, kept by John C. Cummings, Esq…. [t]his ‘Tavern,’ as they were then called, was liberally patronized by the public. “Next is a small frame house still standing used as a shop …
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Happy Trails
“Today the Great Wagon Road, or Valley Turnpike, is known as Highway 11, a two lane that runs between soft and misty mountains, with pretty byways. Long stretches of U.S. 11 look much like the Valley Turnpike did in the 1830s–rolling fields, horses and cattle on hills.” (“Retracing Slavery’s Trail of Tears”) This is how …
What did people do in Old Abingdon?
“Abingdon, the county seat, is 304 miles SW. of Richmond… The town stands on an elevation; it is substantially built, with many brick buildings; the principle street is macamadized, and the town is surrounded by a fertile, flourishing, and thickly settled agricultural country. It contains several large mercantile stores, 2 newspaper printing offices, 1 Presbyterian, …
The Civil War in Southwest Virginia
“I scarcely felt I was in exile from home when I stayed in Abingdon, for I love the place far better than Nashville and almost as much as I did Kentucky.” (The Private War of Lizzie Hardin, p.208) “Despite its small size, many powerful southern political figures resided in Abingdon in the antebellum period. Originally …
Where, oh where, was Black’s Fort?
Right in the middle of the Historical Marker Trail of Abingdon’s Historic District, at the corner of Main and Pecan Streets, Marker K-48 designates the Site of Black’s Fort. “The fort, built in 1776, stood a short distance to the South.” But where exactly? For a town so thoroughly steeped in its history, one would …
The Wilderness Trail, The Great Wagon Road, and the Slavery Trail of Tears
Whether Daniel Boone or Thomas Walker actually “discovered” the site that was described as “Wolf Hills” in 1760, in less than a decade a settlement in that remote corner of Southwest Virgina grew in to the community named Abingdon. Boone is also with the development of a portion of The Wilderness Road which made it …
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Daniel Boone as a Virginian
“The Draper Manuscripts indicate that Boone’s ‘first venture westward,’ from the Yadkin River area in North Carolina into Virginia with Nathaniel Gist as a companion, was in 1760. They entered Virginia at Whitetop Mountain… . They had an unobstructed view from Whitetop, so named because the treeless portions appear white during winter snows. The westward …
Intro
A Walk Through History “…and here begins the history of the West.” L P. Summers Walking the streets of Abingdon is a little like a visit to the Wild West. That is because at one time Abingdon was the West. “Before the coming of the white man, the Indian trails from the north and south …