The past is now present in Nelson County

By Darrell Laurant

Published: August 17, 2008

ARRINGTON — Finally, Nelson County’s past has moved from the future into the present.

OK, maybe that’s a little hard to grasp. Let’s phrase it another way: Nelson County has always had a past, but there was no place to put it. Now, with the the grand opening of the Nelson County Museum of History, there is.

The museum will be open on Thursdays from 1-4 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. beginning next week. Admission is $5 for adults, children 12 and under free.

The museum — housed at Oakland, a 170-year-old structure alongside U.S. 29 — invited the public to its unveiling Sunday afternoon, not really knowing how much of the public would respond.

According to Nelson County Historical Society board member Bernie McGinness, organizers erred on the side of caution.

“We only brought in 100 cups of ice cream,” McGinness said. “Obviously, you don’t want to have a lot of extra ice cream sitting around in hot weather.”

Not a problem. A crowd that some members of the historic board estimated at close to 1,000 devoured the ice cream a half hour into the 3-5 p.m. event.

But nobody seemed to mind, because there was a lot more to the day. There were exhibits on the devastation of the county by Hurricane Camille in 1969, the initial electrification of the county in the 1930s and a re-created tavern (now dry) in the basement. There was cake and lemonade, and music from a remarkably versatile (Willie Nelson to Motown) band called “Bennie Dodd & Friends.”

“I was hoping 100 people would show up,” said organizer Beth Goodwin, whose husband J.W. was born in the house. “This is just wonderful.”

Sweet Briar College graduate Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, was among the visitors, dedicating a historic plaque and serving as the keynote speaker from a podium set up on the house’s high front porch.

“What you have done here is a textbook example of historic preservation,” Kilpatrick said, her voice partly muffled by the steady hum of traffic out on 29. “You have hit on all the great milestones.”

Oakland started out as an ordinary (also known as a tavern) on the Charlottesville-Lynchburg road. Travelers would stop in for a meal, perhaps followed by a few drinks, and then spend the night.

Drinking and driving was not much of a problem in the 1840s.

In 1857, Dr. Arthur Hopkins purchased the sturcture and turned it into a clinic for sick and wounded Confederate soldiers.

From 1871 until the mid-20th century, the place was a working farm. It then evolved into a residence until the last owner went into a nursing home and Oakland was sold to the Nelson County Historical Society.

“It took about four years to renovate this,” said Goodwin. “Because it had been lived in most of the time, it wasn’t in real bad shape. We had to do a lot of work to the chimneys, and some interior work.”
One improvement was intentionally regressive.

“The ceiling in the basement where the tavern had been was some kind of plaster board,” said Woody Greenburg of the Historical Society. “Somebody got the idea of tearing that out and exposing the beams, so we did.”

They were oak, or perhaps chestnut, and are now fully visible in all their mottled gray and brown glory.

“We were very fortunate to get some good grants from the state,” McGinness said. “before the money started to dry up.”

The current exhibits were a collaborative effort. An oral history video on electrification was produced by former intern Erin Hughey-Comers. A slide show on Camille employed slides from photographer Brower York of Waynesboro that had never been shown in Nelson County before.

“I was up in Augusta County, taking pictures of the flooding up there,” said York, who attended Sunday’s opening, “and somebody told me, ‘You ought to go down to Nelson County. They had a really bad flood there — I heard a man was killed.’”

Actually, the final death toll topped 100.

“I had offered to show these photos before,” York said, “but I was always told it was too soon, that people would be upset.”

But then, the county never had a place for such history before.