Virginia

Archaeologists in Virginia unearth colonial-era garden with clues about its enslaved gardeners

Published

2 hours ago

August 23, 2024

Archaeologists in Virginia unearth colonial-era garden with clues about its enslaved gardeners

WILLIAMSBURG, Va. (AP) — Archaeologists in Virginia are uncovering one of colonial America’s most lavish displays of opulence: An ornamental garden where a wealthy politician and enslaved gardeners grew exotic plants from around the world.

Such plots of land dotted Britain’s colonies and served as status symbols for the elite. They were the 18th-century equivalent of buying a Lamborghini.

The garden in Williamsburg belonged to John Custis IV, a tobacco plantation owner who served in Virginia’s colonial legislature. He is perhaps best known as the first father-in-law of Martha Washington. She married future U.S. President George Washington after Custis’ son Daniel died.

Historians also have been intrigued by the elder Custis’ botanical adventures, which were well-documented in letters and later in books. And yet this excavation is as much about the people who cultivated the land as it is about Custis.

“The garden may have been Custis’ vision, but he wasn’t the one doing the work,” said Jack Gary, executive director of archaeology at Colonial Williamsburg, a living history museum that now owns the property. “Everything we see in the ground that’s related to the garden is the work of enslaved gardeners, many of whom must have been very skilled.”

Archaeologists have pulled up fence posts that were 3 feet (1 meter) thick and carved from red cedar. Gravel paths were uncovered, including a large central walkway. Stains in the soil show where plants grew in rows.

The dig also has unearthed a pierced coin that was typically worn as a good-luck charm by young African Americans. Another find is the shards of an earthenware chamber pot, which was a portable toilet, that likely was used by people who were enslaved.

Animals appear to have been intentionally buried under some fence posts. They included two chickens with their heads removed, as well as a single cow’s foot. A snake without a skull was found in a shallow hole that had likely contained a plant.

“We have to wonder if we’re seeing traditions that are non-European,” Gary said. “Are they West African traditions? We need to do more research. But it’s features like those that make us continue to try and understand the enslaved people who were in this space.”

The museum tells the story of Virginia’s colonial capital through interpreters and restored buildings on 300 acres (120 hectares), which include parts of the original city. Founded in 1926, the museum did not start telling stories about Black Americans until 1979, even though more than half of the 2,000 people who lived there were Black, the majority enslaved.

In recent years, the museum has boosted efforts to tell a more complete story, while trying to attract more Black visitors. It plans to reconstruct one of the nation’s oldest Black churches and is restoring what is believed to be the country’s oldest surviving schoolhouse for Black children.

There also are plans to recreate Custis’ Williamsburg home and garden, known then as Custis Square. Unlike some historic gardens, the restoration will be done without the benefit of surviving maps or diagrams, relying instead on what Gary described as the most detailed landscape archaeology effort in the museum’s history.

The garden disappeared after Custis’ death in 1749. But the dig has determined it was about two-thirds the size of a football field, while descriptions from the time reference lead statues of Greek gods and topiaries trimmed into balls and pyramids.

The garden’s legacy has lived on through Custis’ correspondence with British botanist Peter Collinson, who traded plants with other horticulturalists around the globe. From 1734 to 1746, Custis and Collinson exchanged seeds and letters on merchant ships crossing the Atlantic.

The men possibly introduced new plants to their respective communities, said Eve Otmar, Colonial Williamsburg’s master of historic gardening. For instance, Custis is believed to have made one of Williamsburg’s earliest written mentions of growing tomatoes, known then as “apples of love” and native to Mexico and Central and South America.

Custis’s gardeners also planted strawberries, pistachios and almonds, among 100 other imported plants. It’s not always clear from his letters which were successful in the Virginia climate. A recent pollen analysis of the soil indicates the past presence of stone fruits, such as peaches and cherries, which weren’t a big surprise.

The garden existed at a time when European empires and slavery were still expanding. Botanical gardens often were used for discovering new cash crops that could enrich colonial powers.

But Custis’ garden was primarily about showing off his own wealth. A study of the area’s topography placed his garden in direct view of Williamsburg’s only church house at the time. Everyone would have seen the garden’s fence, but few were invited inside.

Custis delighted his guests with the likes of the crown imperial lily, which was native to the Middle East and parts of Asia, and boasted clusters of drooping, bell-shaped flowers.

“In the 18th century, those were unusual things,” Otmar said. “Only certain classes of people got to experience that. A wealthy person today — they buy a Lamborghini.”

The museum is still trying to learn more about the people who worked in the garden.

Crystal Castleberry, Colonial Williamsburg’s public archaeologist, has met with descendants of the more than 200 people who were enslaved by the Custis family on his various plantations. But there is too little information in surviving documents to determine if an ancestor lived and worked at Custis Square.

Two people, named Cornelia and Beck, were listed as property with the Williamsburg estate after Daniel Custis died in 1757. But their names prompt only more questions about who they were and what happened to them.

“Are they related to one another?” Castleberry asked. “Do they fear being split up or sold? Or are they going to be reunited with loved ones on other properties?”

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Virginia

Brent Pry names Collin Schlee Virginia Tech backup quarterback

Published

9 hours ago

August 22, 2024

Press Room

Brent Pry names Collin Schlee Virginia Tech backup quarterback

Why JD PicKell Likes Virginia Tech

After Virginia Tech quarterback Kyron Drones announced his return this offseason, there was little doubt who would be starting behind center for the Hokies. However, the QB2 title was up for grabs.

Collin Schlee and William ‘Pop’ Watson III were the two main competitors for the job. On Wednesday, Virginia Tech head coach Brent Pry revealed who will be the team’s backup QB this season.

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“It’s Collin Schlee,” Pry said. “Just performance-based, not that we’re disappointed with Pop. He’s done some good things. He’s improved. He had a minor injury setback, but Collin’s been very impressive, particularly not being with us as much this summer.

“He’s a good student of the game, and he’s got a nice arm, and certainly he’s athletic. He can run our offense. So I think, again, it’s not necessarily a knock on Pop, as much as it is a compliment to Collin.”

Schlee transferred to Virginia Tech this offseason after spending the 2023 campaign at UCLA. He appeared in seven games for the Bruins, tallying 139 yards and one touchdown. However, he also threw two interceptions.

Prior to his lone season at UCLA, Schlee played three years at Kent State. In his final season with the Golden Flashes, Schlee completed 157 passes for 2,109 yards and 13 touchdowns, compared to just five interceptions.

Schlee boasts the obvious advantage in experience. Watson’s true freshman season was last year and he only appeared in two games. Although Schlee won’t be the Week 1 starter for the Hokies, he’s excited for the upcoming season with Virginia Tech.

“This is my third school now. The other schools, I had a lot of coaching changes and so I thought it would be best for me to just go back closer to home,” Schlee said. “So, Virginia Tech sounded like a great opportunity where I could show who I can be on the football field, be closer to home, and still get to play the game I love.

“[The offense] has the bits of ties of Kent State and UCLA. So being able to pick up the offense was just another offense. I’ve been through Chip Kelly‘s offense, which is very difficult, and I’ve been through Sean Lewis‘ offense, which is also pretty difficult. So, just being able to put things in my own words and be able to see it how I see it and how I read it. Coach (Tyler) Bowen‘s really helped me a lot with that… I’m here to win. So, whatever I can do to help the team win, I’m all for it.”

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Virginia

West Virginia gov's historic Greenbrier hotel avoids foreclosure as he runs for Senate

Published

16 hours ago

August 22, 2024

Press Room

West Virginia gov's historic Greenbrier hotel avoids foreclosure as he runs for Senate

The family of West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice has reached an agreement with a credit collection company to avoid the foreclosure of their historic hotel as he runs for US Senate, the resort announced Thursday.

The Republican governor’s family had been set to appear in court Friday to ask a judge to halt the auction of The Greenbrier, which had been scheduled for Tuesday.

That hearing has been canceled.

“It’s taken care of, and we move forward, and The Greenbrier is as whole as it can possibly be,” Justice said at a news briefing. “The Greenbrier is going to be in our family forevermore.”

The hotel came under threat of auction after JPMorgan Chase sold a longstanding loan taken out by the governor to a credit collection company, McCormick 101 — a subsidiary of Beltway Capital — which declared it to be in default.

In a statement, the Justice family said it had reached an agreement with Beltway Capital to “receive a specific amount to be paid in full by October 24, 2024.”

The family said it had already secured the money, although the Justices did not specify the amount.

“Under the agreement, Beltway Capital will Beltway reserves its rights if the Justice family fails to perform,” the statement reads.

A message left with Beltway Capital wasn’t immediately returned Thursday.

Justice defended his family’s business practices at Thursday’s briefing and repeated past claims that JPMorgan Chase’s sale of The Greenbrier loan was a politically motivated effort to hurt his US Senate campaign.

“We had a 14-year working relationship with JPMorgan, and then shortly after the primary where I was the winner — hands down, you’re going to the U.S. Senate, no matter what anybody says under the sun — it makes, it made, total no sense other than political, it made no sense at all,” he said.

Justice said that his family had made payments on the JPMorgan as recently as June and that it was notified the loan had been sold in July without prior warning. JPMorgan Chase did not respond to an email seeking comment.

If the hotel had been sold, Justice said, “there would have been carnage and devastation like you can’t imagine to the great people of The Greenbrier,” referring to jobs that could have been lost.

The auction, which had been set to occur at a courthouse Tuesday in the small city of Lewisburg, involved 60.5 acres, including the hotel and parking lot.

Justice family attorneys filed a motion this week for a preliminary injunction to try to halt the auction of The Greenbrier.

They claimed that a 2014 deed of trust approved by the governor was defective because JPMorgan didn’t obtain consent from the Greenbrier Hotel Corp.’s directors or owners, and that auctioning the property violates the company’s obligation to act in “good faith and deal fairly” with the corporation.

They also argued, in part, that the auction would harm the economy and threaten hundreds of jobs.

About 400 employees at The Greenbrier hotel received notice this week from an attorney for the health care provider Amalgamated National Health Fund saying they would lose coverage Tuesday, the scheduled date of the auction, unless the Justice family paid $2.4 million in missing contributions.

Peter Bostic, a union official with the Workers United Mid-Atlantic Regional Joint Board, said that the Justice family hasn’t contributed to employees’ health fund in four months, and that an additional $1.2 million in contributions will soon be due, according to the letter the board received from Ronald Richman, an attorney with Schulte Roth & Zabel LLP, the firm representing the fund.

The letter also said some contributions were taken out of employees’ paychecks but never transferred to the fund, concerning union officials.

Justice dismissed concerns about the claims Thursday, telling reporters that “insurance payments were made and were being made on a regular basis.”

“There is no way that the great union employees at The Greenbrier are going to go without insurance,” he said. “There is no possible way.”

Justice is running for Senate against Democrat Glenn Elliott, a former mayor of Wheeling. Justice, who owns dozens of companies and had a net worth estimated at $513 million by Forbes Magazine in 2021, has been accused in court cases of being late in paying millions for family business debts and fines for unsafe working conditions at his coal mines.

He began serving the first of his two terms as governor in 2017, after buying The Greenbrier out of bankruptcy in 2009.

The hotel has hosted US presidents, royalty and, from 2010 until 2019, a PGA Tour tournament.

Justice’s family also owns The Greenbrier Sporting Club, a private luxury community with a members-only “resort within a resort.”

That property was scheduled to be auctioned off this year in an attempt by Carter Bank & Trust of Martinsville, Virginia, to recover more than $300 million in business loans defaulted by the governor’s family, but a court battle delayed that process.

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Virginia

Missing Missouri teen may have traveled to Virginia with someone she met online

Published

23 hours ago

August 22, 2024

Press Room

Missing Missouri teen may have traveled to Virginia with someone she met online

A search is underway for a Missouri teen who may have traveled to Virginia with someone she met online, according to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Authorities are searching for 17-year-old Abigail Lawless, who went missing from her home in West Plains, Missouri in the middle of the night after her family fell asleep.

We’re told she is 5 feet, 9 inches tall and weighs about 160 pounds.

Abigail’s mom, Leah Lawless, said this happened after a nice dinner outing with the family and is highly unusual for her daughter, noting that she has never left home before. She said she has not contacted any family or friends since she left, which is not like her, according to the mom.

“We all love and miss you so much, please come home. We just need to know that you are okay and safe,” her mother said, hoping that the message will reach her daughter.

In an effort to bring more attention to Abigail’s case, her poster is being featured on the Ring’s Neighbors app as a part of a partnership between NCMEC and Ring. This feature reaches millions of users, providing real-time assistance in locating missing children.

If you have any information about Abigail or her disappearance, please contact NCMEC at 1-800-THE-LOST (1-800-843-5678) or the Howell County Sheriff’s Office (Missouri) at 1-417-256-2544.

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