A slide show prepared for a history conference on the general topic of transportation...this is the story of an Episcopal Church ( in Fincastle) that started a renovation project of a mission church ( in Eagle Rock) and of the wonderful community they found there... It offers a nice example of collecting oral histories, encouraging preservation of a nearly abandoned building, and offers inspiration for re-purposing and reviving rural communities. ...Also touches on youth ministry, segregation, integration, canals, railroads, and nineteenth century industrial development.
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1. A 21st century voyage of discovery to Eagle Rock By Ellen
Apperson Brown Renovation projects, of a rural church and a towns
community center have brought together two groups an Episcopal
church, in Fincastle and the Eagle Rock Ruritan Club, and set in
motion an interesting cultural exchange.
2. Only ten milesFrom Fincastle to Eagle Rock The Episcopal
Diocese of Southwest Virginia was planning to sell off one of its
old churches Emmanuel, Eagle Rock - but parishioners at St. Marks,
Fincastle, decided to take responsibility for restoring the old
frame building (the first church in Eagle Rock, built in 1885).
About the same time, members of the Eagle Rock Ruritan Club asked
the county government to let them take ownership of the towns
community center. They began planning for major repairs. Soon both
groups, the Ruritans and the Episcopalians, began to collaborate
together, holding meetings at a local restaurant and later in the
public library. Now, a year or so later, both renovation projects
are well underway, and the two communities have developed closer
ties. And ten miles doesnt seem quite such a distance anymore.
3. About Episcopal Churches in Botetourt County St. Marks
Church was built in the 1830s, but never had the money or resources
to be a free standing parish until the 1960s. For many years St.
Marks shared its clergy with the two other churches in the county
Emmanuel, Eagle Rock and Trinity, Buchanan. In the 1880s, Eagle
Rock was booming, and a plans developed to build a church. The
organizers borrowed $250 from a National Church Building fund. The
style ,known as Carpenter Gothic, featured a steep roof, pointed
windows, and board and batten siding. It may have been built using
plans furnished through the National church, and perhaps using
pre-fab materials shipped by trainthus an early mail-order
church!
4. A good source of information about Eagle Rock is the book
Lost Communities of Virginia by Terri Fisher and Kirsten Sparenborg
The authors describe the floods, industries, and the changes in
transportation - from the canal to the railroad - and include
interviews with several local historians. They capture the ongoing
vitality of the people who live there: Certainly the impending loss
of the bridge had caused great hardship to Eagle Rock, but it also
brought the people together. The Eagle Rock Improvement Association
was created to clean up the community and make it more attractive
to residents and those who make the effort to visit. Projects
included a new playground, hanging baskets in the spring and
wreaths on winter, washing storefront windows, cleaning the river
bank, and creating parks at the old lime kilns and last lock of the
James River and Kanawha Canal. However, some people do not like to
think of Eagle Rock as a lost community!
5. Beginning a pilgrimage down the road, from Fincastle to
Eagle Rock Father Stephen Stanley Hired in 2011, he was charged
with responsibility for not only St. Marks Fincastle, but also the
Glebe Retirement Center, and Emmanuel Church, Eagle Rock. He began
taking parishioners out to see the church, and encouraging everyone
to join him for a meal at Maw and Paws Restaurant. Then, he joined
the Eagle Rock Ruritan Club and learned about their plans to make
repairs to the Community Center. In July, a group of youth from the
diocese came to help clean up the church in Eagle Rock and to learn
about local history. (Shown here with Fr. Stephen at St.
Marks)
6. St. Marks Vestry authorized Fr. Stephen to develop a list of
objectives. The to do list included: Bee removal Leaks around the
roof and siding Mold on interior walls Weeds ( and poison ivy)
around gravestones Sacristy needing major repairs
7. Excitement grew as parishioners began to get involved, and
help in various clean-up efforts. Here they are enjoying a parish
picnic in the shelter near Galatia Presbyterian Church
8. Events Mass on the Mountain May 2013 - about 30 youth from
the diocese, with parents, and lively music! Work Dayswashing walls
Youth Pilgrimage July 2013; gathering oral histories Appalachian
Vespers Services, featuring gospel and folk musicians
9. A Diocesan youth group planned a pilgrimage to several rural
communities in SWVA, including Bluefield, Tazewell, Pocahontas, and
Glasgow, with a two day visit to Fincastle and Eagle Rock. Several
of the young historians conducted interviews with some of the local
people. Here are some of the comments they collected. Peggy Hamm
(retired teacher) told about her church, the black community, and
her perspective concerning desegregation in the public schools
10. Peggy Hamm excerpts from her talk About Glen Wilton people
from the Historical Society called me to see if I could find out
any information about the black community known as Glen Wilton.
When I moved therethere was a lot of people there, but most of them
died. When you are in a rural area, unless somebody has willed you
the house ( your great grandma or something) Nobody moved there.
Nobody wanted to move to a rural area, because there were no
schools.
11. Peggy Hamm About Mount Beulah Baptist Church the church
that I go to is Mount Beulah Baptist Church, and it is a black
church. It originatedit was in the town of Glen Wilton. It used to
be over by an old furnace. That was when they had a booming Glen
Wilton. They had a church and a near where they had an iron
furnaceuntil they had some sort of explosion, the mine closed, and
people moved out. There werent any more jobs except that and the
railroad. And then they moved our churchI guess they had to build a
new foundation.
12. Peggy Hamm Mount Beulah, cont. If you see a sign that says
a church was built using brick from another church, well there are
churches in this area with bricks from great grandmas church. Most
of the rural churches make their money from homecomings or rallies.
That is where we get the money from from September to September.
That is when you call everybody, or write to everybody, whose
parents were buried in the graveyard
13. Peggy Hamm Raising money for the church That is what I do.
I get a little form letter and say, This is our letter for this
year. We need money for the church. That was the main source of
income for a rural church, and having rallies and fish fries, and
stuff. I know my pastor used to say, I know it is dwindling, but if
we tithe, I know it is going to make a way Youth You need more than
that! Peggy You need a lot of blessings!
14. Peggy Hamm An outhouse When I first came down here we had
an outhouse for the church. A little outdoor thing. and it had a
little shed for storing all those things that you didnt have room
for, inside. Then we got running waterafter they got water
available up the road, so we pumped it down here, and then we got a
kitchen, with a stove. For Homecoming we needed a kitchen for all
the food, and about ten fifteen years after that we finally got the
money together to have a bathroom! We had one for men and one for
women we had two! We also had a little dressing room for the
choir.
15. Peggy Hamm her family Peggy - I have four children. My
daughter, shes the manager of a doctors office, but she sings. She
goes up there and she sings. She sings all over the place. I dont
know if Tommy has heard her sing? Tommy Hunter Yes. I have heard
her! Peggy I have a son, and he is a deacon, and he sings, you
know. I have another son who has moved back from Connecticut, so we
have five more people who can come to church my son and his three
kids! All of a sudden you have a whole lot of people in church
16. Pastor Robert McRae Flood of 1985 In 1985 we had a flood
and the debris it didnt bother this bridge that we were using,
which is now the old bridge, but it wiped out two sections of this
bridge and took them down the river. You asked about the impact of
the railroad? The canalthe reason the canal was not completed?
Guess why. The railroad came by. A lady named Nadine Rankin ( her
former husband was a doctor here and had a little clinic across the
river), but she went from nurse to teaching school. She is a
historian for this part of the countythough she moved to
Fincastle.
17. Pastor McRae About the dedication for the park When the
garden club had a dedication for the little park here, the last
lock of the Kanawha Canal, Nadine was sort of a host for that
meeting. We had a big day. We had a lot of folks here. We had a
batteaux group that came, and we were celebrating! It was an
historical celebration. In the middle of her speaking, do you know
what happened? The train came through! And she caught the moment by
saying, well, upstaged by the railroad again, because the canal was
never finished.
18. Pastor McRae What are his hopes for the future? Bob - I
think that the hope here, in many respects , lies in the people.
And to see a group like this come this is encouraging! But it has
been encouraging for us to be active in the Ruritan Club. I have
been in it for the 30 years that I have been here. And the
Community CenterDo you know what was going to be done with that?
Ellen Tear it down! Bob It was to be torn down. And Donna Vaughn,
who will be your hostess ( you met her husband out here) she served
and finished out a term as supervisor, so she knows the goings on
in the county, and she went to bat for us, and she said we cant let
that building go. We cant let it be destroyed. She was responsible
for our being able to acquire that. Our hope is in the people.
19. Nadine Rankin How did Eagle Rock get its name? Well, there
was, before VDOT (Virginia Department of Transportation) there was
a huge rock right across the bridge, right as you came into It was
a huge prominence, and it came out like the head of an eagle. Of
course they blasted that off, but above that they found huge nests
of eagles. And so I think that the Indians named it Eagle Rock
because they revered the Eagle so much. That is just conjecture,
but it might have been a possibility.
20. Nadine Rankin, cont. Other names Nadine The place was first
known as Sheets. Youth We were told that. We were thinking of the
gas station (Sheets) of course. Nadine He (Sheets) owned all of
this land. He was the one if, of course, if you wanted to buy any
land The railroad wanted to buy the right of way for the land, so
they purchased a parcel so wide, and then 1,000 feet down. As the
settlement grew, they wanted to have a post office. Before you can
have a post office, you have to be legal, and they first named the
community Breckinridge, and then they named it Sheets, because of
the owner, and then it came around to Eagle Rock
21. Becoming a village Nadine - So in 1879, as the sign coming
into town says, it was declared a village. It didnt really qualify
as a village. You know from your studies that a village is a large
piece of land, but I would sayit was a community, really. Of
course, there were no roadsno nothing, and the only travel was by
batteaux! Do you know what a batteau was? Gabie Yes, Mam. I go to
the batteaux festival every year! Nadine Good dealThey have those
big old twenty foot long, and seven foot wideand it goes back
toThey came all the way from Covington, and they brought wheat and
corn, hogsheads. Do you know what a hogshead is? It is not the head
of a pig It is a four by four square of tobacco that is rolled real
tight, and is put in this shapeand they always weighed over 1,000
pounds! They hauled them down, because they wanted them to go to
Richmond.
22. The first industry and the first church in Eagle Rock Eagle
Rock was a boom town which enjoyed its first major commercial
enterprise, the production of lime and dolomite products until
1954. Agricultural lime was sold to increase the P.H. in plant life
for the farmer, as a catalyst in the making of pig iron, and as
white wash. There were nine active kilns in the community which
hired 100 workers. Eagle Rock was the center of industry for
Botetourt County. The first church in the community was the
Episcopal Churchorganized in 1877, built in 1885, and was used by
other groups before they could build their own churches
23. Our latest history project: The Eagle Connection After the
youth pilgrimage, I decided to follow up with Nadine Rankin, and
ask to see if she might be interested in having her set of
newsletters published in book form As of mid February, weve sold
about 150 copies and are well on our way to raising our goal of
$4,000 to be split between the two renovation projects in Eagle
Rock.
24. The take-away lesson for me, as a public historian, is that
in order to learn about a community ( lost or found)one has to
locate the right people, and earn their trust. The three historians
Ive quoted here (Nadine Rankin, Robert McRae and Peggy Hamm)
allowed me to feel the pulse and experience the vitality of a
remarkable community. What a gift!