The series of monthly columns being published by The Smithfield Times under the heading “Commemorating 250 Years of Freedom” is an extraordinary contribution to local history.

The Smithfield Times is providing a valuable service by providing the space each month for the columns, and the county’s 250th Anniversary Committee is to be commended for coming up with the idea.

That said, credit for the series goes first and last to its author, Caroline Hurt. Caroline, a history major in college, loves history and has the historian’s work ethic and discipline. She is a county native with roots that go back to the county’s earliest days, and that background has driven her work. 

That love and sense of place, combined with the historian’s eye and training, are producing a valuable body of work. By outlining the events that were taking place in Virginia and elsewhere, then bringing them down to Isle of Wight County, she is explaining our home county’s relevance during colonial times. The columns thus become a teaching tool that could be of value not only to the general public but in the classroom. 

I understand the series is already being used more widely than as a monthly newspaper column, and that’s as it should be. Hopefully, when the 250th ends and Mrs. Hurt’s body of work is complete, the county will ensure that it’s published, to stand alongside other works recording our history.

Historians & History Buffs

I am a history lover. Always have been. 

I particularly enjoy local history. I find elements of our history — my native county — to be fascinating. That’s why I write about it quite often.

But — and this is a very big “but” — I’m not a historian and would never claim to be. I’m a journalist who loves to write about history. I do research for columns I write, but I don’t dive deeply into original source material to the degree that a serious historian does. If I’m satisfied that what I’m writing is accurate, that’s fine. A true historian will follow a trail as far into the dark woods as it leads. And that explorer will always keep a flashlight handy in case they see the possibility of going even further.

Isle of Wight and Smithfield have had several serious historians during the 20th and 21st centuries, some of whom I’ve had the high honor of knowing.

I was prompted to write this because of the work currently being done by Caroline Hurt, and she clearly falls into the “historian” category, but there have been many more among us. I’m going to list some of them, and undoubtedly will miss some. For that I apologize in advance, but nevertheless fully expect to receive word about those I omitted.

Two were before my time: John Bennett Boddie and Col. E.M. Morrison.

Boddie had deep roots in the south shore of the James and wrote a 700-plus-page history of “Seventeenth Century Isle of Wight County” that does much to capture the origins of the county and its early inhabitants. He wrote a much shorter, though delightful, “Colonial Surry County,” but they were only the beginning. In all, he published more than 30 books.

Col. Morrison’s “Isle of Wight County 1608-1907” has been much loved by generations. It contains a brief, but often romanticized, peak at elements of county history.

Topping the list of those I have known must be Segar Cofer Dashiell and Helen King. Both were women of great presence, though with very different personalities. Both had the historian’s discipline.

Mrs. Dashiell’s “Smithfield: A Pictorial History” is a comprehensive account of Smithfield’s founding and history up to the mid-20th century. It tracks the history of every housing lot laid out in the original town plat. But there’s nothing dry about it. Mrs. Dashiell loved life and the people around her, and she wrote with a twinkle in her eye. That spirit comes through in her book and in the newspaper columns she wrote for decades.

Mrs. King’s first published work was “Historic Isle of Wight,” a description of all the pre-Civil War houses in the county that were still standing during her life. Her greatest contribution, however, was “Historical Notes on Isle of Wight County,” a compendium of county history. Mrs. King wrote most of the book, but compiled and edited all of it. It’s an outstanding collection of county history, viewed from many angles.

The late Estelle Beale Seward was an indefatigable researcher of local history who encouraged Mrs. King to undertake writing a definitive county history.

Carolyn Keen is a researcher and collector of local history. Her photographic library contains much of the county’s 20th century history, some of which has been published. She has compiled an extraordinary amount of information on country stores, including the photos, but it is as yet unpublished.

Mrs. Keen’s husband, Michael Farmer, is an award-winning historian and novelist specializing in the history and decline of Native Americans in the Southwest.

The late Doris Rae Gwaltney researched mostly family history, but used historic research as the basis for several novels focused on local history.

Though not from Isle of Wight, anthropologist Helen Rountree’s study of Native Americans in Southeast Virginia has had a profound impact on our understanding of the culture of those who were living here when English colonists arrived.

Throughout the county, there are historians whose work goes largely unpublished. Some of them focus on family, others on their church histories. The work they have done and continue to do adds to our collective body of knowledge.

I’ll stop there, with apologies to all those omitted, and a tip of the hat to those named and unnamed whose time and talents have helped preserve our local history and will continue doing so.

 

John Edwards is publisher emeritus of The Smithfield Times. His email address is j.branchedwards@gmail.com.