A Bit of Town History
A Bit of History
Of “Old”
Liberty/Bedford,
Virginia
by
Thomas A.
Markham
______________________________
(Click
the underlined words to see Picture)
Situated in the western part of the Piedmont plain., about seven miles from the scenic
Peaks of Otter,
Bedford
has had a long, proud history. Over the years its name has been altered several
times. First called "Liberty” when it was founded in 1782, it became known as "Bedford
City" during the boom of 1890. In 1912, when all
hope of Bedford
developing into a large industrial center had faded, "City" was
dropped, only to be incorporated in the name again in 1968, when by action of the town council, it became known as the "City of Bedford”.
The story of how the town of Liberty
got its start is an interesting one. When New London,
which served as the county seat until 1782,
became a part of the newly formed Campbell County, Bedford
was forced to look for a new site. William
Callaway, Jr. was asked to make a survey of the county in order
to locate the new court house as near the center as possible.
Picture of William Calloway, Jr.
In the meantime an offer of a hundred acres of land
along what was known as Bramblett's Road
was made by Joseph
Fuqua and William Downey. A committee, consisting
of William Mead William Leftwich, William Trigg, Henry Buford, and
James Buford, was asked to examine the land to determine its suitability and report
to the court by July 23, 1782. The
report being favorable, James Buford was asked to make a contract for the
building of a courthouse, prison, and stocks. Accordingly, a courthouse 20' by
30' with a twelve-foot pitch and a chimney of thick dirt or stone was erected
in a grove of oaks on the site of the present Bulletin-Democrat building, and the first court
was held on August 25, 1782.
In October, 1782, in response
to a petition by the justices of Bedford,
the General Assembly of Virginia, passed an act establishing the town of
Liberty
in title County
of Bedford, which was named after John
Ressell (Duke of Bedford) the English Prime Minister, with the
provision that the court-house property continue to remain in county
hands. William Leftwich, James Turner,
James Wright, William Meade, William Callaway, James Buford, and Robert Clarke
were named as trustees of the hundred acres and were authorized to “divide”
it into lots of half an acre each, or more, with convenient streets, which
shall be and the same as, hereby established a town by the name of “Liberty”.
It has been suggested that the name "Liberty"
was chosen for one of two reasons; namely, because of Patrick Henry's great speech on "Liberty" or because of the new
gained freedom the colonies had so recently won from England.
The following quotation, which
appeared in The History of Bedford
County, Virginia, by Lula Jeter Parker, was culled from a newspaper clipping
in the possession of
C. R. Hurt of the county, and describes “Liberty” in the year 1830. :
·
Liberty, P. V. and
seat of justice, is situated on a branch of Otter River,
26 ms. S.W. from R. and 223 ms. from W. Lat. 37 dg. 17' long. 20 dg. W. of N.C.
The Lynchburg
and Salem Turnpike runs through the town, which contains, besides the
county buildings, 70 houses, two Baptist and one Free Church; Masonic
Hall, two taverns, five mercantile stores, one tobacco manufactory, two
tanyards, three house carpenters, one wheelwright, and two turners.
The mail arrives
and departs fifteen times in a week. “Liberty” contains nine attorneys
and four regular physicians; whole population 350.
Henry Howe, in Historical Collections of Virginia published in 1856, had this to say about Liberty:
·
Liberty,
the County-Seat, is on the Lynchburg and Salem Turnpike, 26 miles southwest
of, the former, and contains five mercantile stores, one Baptist,
one
Presbyterian, one Episcopal and
one Methodist church, a large
and handsome courthouse, built in 1834, and a population of about 600. This neat
and flourishing village is the admiration of travelers, being surrounded by a
beautiful, rolling, fertile country, bounded by a background of great
sublimity.
Reverend Joseph A. Craves, in his History
of the Bedford Light Artillery, has
given the following description of the town:
·
“Liberty”, in May,
1861, was a quiet, unpretentious town. The streets were paved with poor
material and only for a short distance. Our orators and politicians were James
F. Johnson, William Burwell, William L. Goggin and the Hon. John Goode. Our
leading merchants were Alfred Bell, 0. P. Bell, S. H. Hoffman and William
Graves. The storehouses in which they did business were inconvenient wooden
buildings, without any apparatus for heating them save in the counting room,
into which a very few persons were allowed to come; but they kept a full line
of almost every kind of merchandise. There were no soda fountains, nor hardware
stores, nor tobacco warehouses.
We had no water works, no telephone, and no electric lights.
When the moon did not shine we took our lanterns.
The following excerpts are from a talk made by T. W. Richardson, postmaster at Bedford, before the Board of
Trade at its annual meeting on Friday, March
18, 1921:
·
I came to Bedford
a little over twenty-five years ago. Bedford had then something around 2,000 inhabitants,
and there were hardly half a dozen men in the place who had assets amounting to
$25,000. Bedford
now has over 3,000 population, and there are: at least half a dozen men who
could scratch around and find $100,000 each.
There was a tumble-down store on the Roadcap corner
with billboards on vacant fronts behind it. This corner with its terrazzo
floors, splendid fittings and handsome clerks has been built in less than
fifteen years, and Fizer's store
and the Gills building not long before.
When I walked out Longwood Avenue on my first trip to Bedford, I passed
the house now occupied by Ellis Bibb, the next was Mrs. Lee’s and the Judge
Tucker's (the John Goode house). The next building on that street was at the Forks
of the Road. Call to mind the handsome residences on that street now. Look at
the fine dwellings on Avenel Street, only one of which was there much less than
twenty-five years ago. Those of us who
were here at the time will never forget the old board walks and the mud and
slime of some of our principal streets, hack owners sometimes actually
refusing to take their teams to the station at the worst seasons. This has all
been changed by the enterprise and progress of Bedford citizens. All the
principal streets have concrete sidewalks; there is about a mile of brick
paved streets and several miles of macadam.
Bedford's economic development
seemingly was shaped by two major happenings in its early history. One of these
was the Great Fire of 1884, which started
in a store operated by J. N. Early located on the southeast corner of Bridge Street and Railroad Avenue.
Most of the buildings along
both sides of Bridge Street were
made of wood and flimsily constructed so that when the fire was discovered on
the morning of October 12, 1884,
very little could be done, as there was no organized fire department and a
meager water supply. Soon the heart of town was “A Blazing Inferno”. When daylight came, only two
buildings were left standing, and the scene was one of desolation.
The fire, however, proved a blessing
in disguise, for when the owners rebuilt, the establishments were made larger
and of more permanent material such as brick. The town also realized the necessity of having greater Fire Protection and a more Adequate Water Supply.
It wasn't long before reforms along these lines were effected.
The second event was the Boom of 1890. Liberty, like many other places
in southwest Virginia, was seized with an urge for expansion. Ever since the Great Fire,
the town had grown amazingly. Liberty, in fact, hoped to imitate Roanoke
and become a thriving industrial center. Many promoters were drawn to the
little town, and several new land companies were formed, such as the Central Land Company, headed by 0. W.
Kelsey, and the Bedford Real Estate
Company, of which E. P. Vandershee was president.
Land adjacent to town was
bought by these companies, and a map of the period shows that the newly
acquired property was divided off into proper streets and avenues. At this time
the name "Liberty" was changed
to "Bedford City", and an
imposing new hotel, called Hotel Bedford, was built on the site
where the Elks
National Home is now.
However, the expected "miracle"
never happened. As a result, businesses failed, banks closed, and Bedford
experienced a depression impossible to describe. When the town recovered by
slow degrees, it was evident that Bedford would never attain the status of a big
city. In fact, the term "city"
was dropped, and the citizens seemed content that their town develop at a
slower pace.
The following is a list of the known
Mayors
of Liberty, according to
Edward Pollock in the Sketch Book of
Liberty:
Mayors of Olde
Liberty
·
Samuel Hoffman - elected June 5, 1849
·
Dr. John A. Otey - elected June 8, 1850
·
William L Hoit - elected October 3, 1853
·
John A. Wharton served until June 5, 1849
·
Hugh White - elected May 9, 1854
·
P. Bell - elected July 25, 1855
·
John R. Steptoe - elected July 30, 1856
·
(Minutes missing from Feb.18, 1857 –
Nov.27, 1860)
·
Dr. John A. Otey - elected Nov.27, 1860
·
(Minutes missing from May 3, 1862 to Oct 23, 1866)
·
John A. Otey again mentioned as mayor in the minutes of
Oct.23, 1866
·
W. Leftwich - elected July 23, 1667
·
Dr. T. M. Sawyer - elected April 13, 1871
·
P. Sell - elected July 1, 1878
·
McLeod Kasey - elected July 1, 1880
·
Dr. C. A. Board - elected June 14, 1881
·
Dr. T. M. Bowyer -
elected July 1, 1884
·
Dr. C. A. Board - elected Jan.12, 1886
SPECIAL OCCASIONS IN
OLD BEDFORD
Memorial
Day used to be a big event in the lives of the Citizens of Old Bedford. It was a time of paying
annual tribute to the memory of the Confederate
Dead, and the ceremonies were conducted under the auspices of
the William R. Terry Chapter of U.D.C. On this day the streets, places of business, and even
individual houses were appropriately decorated. The following is a brief account of an observance reported in 1910:
·
A committee of
the chapter, headed by Mrs. S. Griffin, president, repaired first to the Cemetery on Piedmont Hill, leaving a tribute of flowers to the
500 soldiers from many states buried there. Then they moved on to Longwood Cemetery and adorned the graves of nearly 100 soldiers with flowers and small flags. At 10:45 the chapter officers drove to the Courthouse on Main Street to greet the veterans who had
assembled there, and escorted them in a march to the Belmont Theater, where the
chief ceremonies were to take place. They were cheered along the way by
hundreds of onlookers waving banners.
The veterans, many attired in Confederate
Uniform, were
commanded by Gen. S.
Griffin, Chief Marshall, and his aides, Maj. W. H. Mosby, Maj. W. F. Graves
and Caption T. S. West. The invocation
was offered by the Rev. S.S. Lambeth D.D., who served with distinction
throughout the war, and the speaker was the Hon. James W. Marshall of Craig
County, a noted orator of the day.
Later the soldiers marched to the courthouse lawn, where a Splendid Monument had been erected to the Confederate dead the year before. Here a prayer and benediction were
offered by the Rev. T. C. Page, after which the veterans repaired to the
Alliance Warehouse, where a sumptuous banquet had been prepared for them, and
were served by young ladies dressed in white with sprigs of red roses pinned on
them.
The fourth Monday in
each month was a special occasion for people in Liberty nearly a hundred years ago.
It was Court Day, and though the County Court system was abolished in
1901, the old “court day" continued to be observed for County Courts.
years by many throughout the county.
The town took on a holiday air,
and people streamed in from near and far to transact business and also to see
and be seen. The local merchants and eating places did a thriving business. Horse trading was a favorite "sport" on that day, and many
a farmer realized too late that he had been cheated on “Jockey Alley."
In 1887 Micajah Davis was judge of the County Court and Robert
S. Quarles, clerk. Commonwealth's attorney, Henry C. Lowry, served
in both the Circuit and County Courts.
HOW
OLD “LIBERTY” CITIZENS DISPORTED THEMSELVES
MANY YEARS AGO
The following account comes
from a newspaper article found in the scrapbook of a deceased Bedford resident.
It is signed “Yeto”, which spelt backwards is "Otey"- presumably
a descendant of the pioneer, John Otey:
·
Where
J. A. and Charley Wharton's houses and the Episcopal Church
(now the Christian) presently stand was a dense oak forest. Mrs.
Burwell’s house now stands on the ground on which the boys of the town had
cleaned out a round race track of one hundred yards in length, and many a
closely contested foot-race was run over this course. Between this and the Forest
Road (now Bridge Street) was where barbecues were held. I well
recall the pits dug in the ground and filled with burning coals over which
whole shoats, quarters of fat beef, and hundreds of squirrels were spitted and
placed to be cooked. When they were done 'Old Jack Seldon' and other
cooks took them up and placed them upon rudely improvised tables, surrounded
them with baskets of ready-baked bread, pies, pickles, etc., and announced that
dinner was ready, when the people would gather in from every direction and
proceeded to satisfy their appetites, rendered doubly keen by inhaling the
savory smell which had for some hours been rising from the rich viands during
the culinary process to which they had been subjected.
·
"Fives" was the game mostly
played by the young athletes of the day. A yard was cleaned off and a battery
erected in the hollow back of where Mr. Wharton's house now stands, and
in the cool of the evening the contestants for victory would meet and play. The
spectators, male and female, young and old, would gather under the umbrageous
oaks and witness the game.
A tournament, as “Old Liberty” knew it, was a
sport in which many contestants on horseback engaged for the purpose of seeing
which one could collect the most rings on his lance as he dashed along a well
defined course. The following description of such an event was taken from The Bedford Sentinel of August, 1869:
At the appointed hour the Knights assembled in front of Liberty
House, and were drawn up into line by Col. Jno. G. Kasey, chief
marshal, marched up Bridge to Main Street, and from thence to
the grounds which were selected for the occasion, situated in the suburb on a
field formerly owned by Col. A. Otey, where a crowd of spectators had
assembled to witness the contest for knightly honors. An appropriate
charge was delivered by Mr. Charles A. Bower, Esq.
Dr. T. M. Bowyer, C. A.
Nicho1s, Esq., and Joseph Wilson, judges, took their positions on the field,
and the riding commenced in earnest. There were several fine fast horses on
the track. The riding commenced at precisely 12 o'clock and continued until
two P.M. with the following results: H. S. Quarles, Knight of the Old Dominion,
first honor; J. N. Early Knight of Piedmont, second honor; M. L. Kasey, Knight
of Despondence, third honor; and C. Lowry, Knight of Trueheart, fourth honor.
When it was officially announced that H. S. Quarles was the successful Knight,
cheer after cheer rent the air as he left the field, showing that this knight
was a general favorite.
The Grand Coronation Ball came
off at the Liberty House, at 9:30 P.M., and about that hour numbers of
Bedford's fair daughters, together with others equally fair from other portions
of the state, might have been seen wending their way in that direction intent
upon paying homage to her Royal Highness, tripping the light fantastic and
witnessing the crowning of her majesty by the successful knight.
Miss Lelia Pleasants of
Richmond was selected Queen of Love and Beauty, and right well did she grace
the royal throne. Miss Ella Steptoe was selected as first maid of honor, Miss
Samuella Owen, second, and Miss Rosa Bell, third. The throne, as may well be imagined,
presented a dazzling array of beauty such as it is the pleasure of but few
mortals to behold.
Our friend Wilkes furnished
refreshments for the party, and fully sustained on this occasion his reputation
as a caterer. The dance continued until “day light in the morning” when all
even at that hour left reluctantly and dispersed for their homes.
Before the advent of radio and
television, certain things loomed large in the minds of young people in
Bedford. One of these was the arrival of the Circus, which usually came to town
every summer. Sometimes it was a small circus, but often a larger, three-ring
one, like Ringling
Brothers or John D. Robinson. In the early days circuses were conveyed
from town to town by their own special trains.
On Circus
Day the young boys of town usually congregated at the railroad station
to watch the arrival and unloading of the cars. People for miles
around thronged into town and lined the streets to watch the Big Parade,
which started at the station and wound its way through town to the lot where
the Large
Tent had been set up.
.
And such a Parade! A string of elephants attired in brilliant colors
and often bearing Circus Queens in gaudy array; huge gilded cages on wheels carrying
wild animals, such as lions, bears, or tigers; large white horses, upon whose
backs acrobatic feats would be performed; exotic animals, like camels and
zebras, being led by circus hands; troops of clowns engaging in endless
horseplay; an ornate wagon bearing the calliope, that magical old steam
piano-all these things were a part
The Big Tent afforded endless
amusement to both young and old. Provisioned with peanuts and cracker-jacks,
the spectators sat spellbound as the ringmaster announced act after act. Surely
no circus performance at Madison Square Garden today could ever approach the
sheer magic of those old circuses.
The arrival of the stage coaches
in Liberty Town was a momentous event one hundred and fifty years ago. Stages
loaded with passengers and carrying mail would swoop into town from Shenandoah
and Lynchburg. Well ahead of time, carriages and saddle horses would be
fastened to posts along Courthouse Square. Ladies arrayed
in their best, perhaps with parasols raised to shade them from the
noonday sun, would promenade along the flagstone walk in front of the courthouse,
awaiting the thunderous approach of the coach, drawn by four to six horses.
Upon its arrival it was said that business men would rush from their shops and
offices and workmen would stop to stare.
The
main thoroughfare through the town was the old Lynchburg-Salem Turnpike,
constructed under the General Turnpike Act of 1818 and completed in the early
1830's. At one time there were toll gates at intervals along this road, and
coaches and passengers had to pay to go over it. A pocket map of the state of
Virginia, published in 1846, with stage routes given on the margin, showed
Lynchburg as quite a stage center. One route was from the Hill City via
Liberty, Fluke, Fincastle, Sweet Springs on to Lewisburg, 112 miles, three
times a week. Another was from Lynchburg by way
of Liberty to Salem three times a week. In the beginning the roads were bad and travel was slow. For that reason taverns and ordinaries were
located at internals along the route to provide food, shelter, and care for
travel-weary passengers and horses. About 1780, when New London was the county
seat and Jimmy Steptoe the clerk of the court, a stop at the more pretentious
Echors Tavern in this thriving little town must have been a real treat,
especially if passengers could get a glimpse of “Jemmy Steptoe" arriving
from nearby “Federal Hill”
in his powdered wig and queue, white broadcloth and his tri-corn velvet
hat." Farther up the "Pike," about six miles from Liberty, was
Merriman's Tavern, a large brick structure, built in 1821 by Edward Merriman
and operated by him for many years. It was said that Andrew Jackson once spent
a night there.
As early as 1787 in the town
of Liberty, Smith's
Tavern, which later became the Aunspaugh home and still later the home
of Mr. Willie Stone, was a favorite stopping place. If the year was 1825, stage
drivers had a choice between the Eagle Tavern, operated by John Armistead Otey
and located on the site of the present Masonic
Building, or Bell's Tavern,
located on the lot where the First and Merchants Bank now stands.
In these taverns there were
usually a tap room, a parlor, and a dining room, the larger ones having
sleeping accommodations above for guests. Prices for food and drink were set by
the County Court and posted. In 1830 a
warm dinner with toddy cost 50 cents; a cold dinner with toddy only 25 cents.
Lodging for the night was 121/2 cents.
Breakfast and supper were 371/2
cents.
In the tap room both peach
brandy and French brandy were selling at 17 cents per pint, while apple brandy
and common whiskey cost only 12 1/2 cents a pint. More exclusive items, such as
sherry, Lisbon, and port, could be bought for 50 cents per bottle.
As the stage left Liberty and
traveled along the western edge of the town on a portion of the route known as
"Bramblett's Road," the passengers might have craned their necks to
view "Cedar Hill," now owned by the Cauthorn family, but the older
part of which was probably built before 1779 by William Bramblett, Jr., son of
the early pioneer, William Bramblett,
Sr. When Jimmy Steptoe assumed duties
as clerk of the court in Liberty, he lived at "Cedar
Hill." If the year were 1836, afar off to their right they might
have glimpsed stately "Avenel," built
by the Hon. William Burwell, whose father was private secretary to Thomas
Jefferson and a friend of Robert E. Lee.
Beyond Liberty, at what was
'known as Buford's Gap, stood Buford's Tavern, which was in operation by 1770. Many tales have been handed down regarding
the hospitality and gay entertainment typical of this old inn. Guests arriving
there by stage from the Black Horse Tavern located on a protected shelf of the Blue Ridge
Mountains were often amazed to find a hot meal awaiting them. Little
did they know that an obliging tavern keeper at the Black Horse had rushed to
an overhanging ledge and blasted out a signal on a stage horn, informing
Paschal Buford, the tavern keeper, “how many chickens to toss into the
pot" and just the number, of
biscuits to fling into the great
oven."
Sooner or later, many
good and useful things have to bow to progress, and such was
the fate of the stage coach. When the Atlantic,
Mississippi and Ohio Railroad (now the Norfolk and Western) was built
in 1852, travel by stage soon became extinct.
Thus closed a boisterous but colorful chapter in our history.
The End