The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry: A Case Study of Lunenburg County, Virginia, 1746-1832

Prologue

Prologue If we were to travel today to the towns of Andover, Dedham, or Concord, Massachusetts, in search of the remnants of seventeenth­ and eighteenth­century community life, we probably could— through the clutter of gas stations, shopping malls, and fast food emporiums—still catch a glimpse of those institutional and physi­ cal structures that tied the people of the much simpler world of colonial New England together in a network of shared values and aspirations. Be the year 1783 or 1983, our search for those insti­ tutions and activities that define community life in the Virginia Southside is a far more perplexing endeavor. Embarking on our quest to discover the character of community life in Lunenburg County, Virginia, today, we would probably take the South Hill turnoff from Interstate 85, sixty­five miles southwest of Petersburg and about twenty miles from the North Carolina border. Traveling toward Lunenburg on Route 40, we would find ourselves immediately removed from the mass­market world of McDonald's, Colonel Sanders, and Holiday Inn along those con­ crete ribbons that traverse our land. There is a new Tastee Freeze in Victoria and something called the Golden Skillet in Kenbridge, but for the most part the people of Lunenburg County have been 4 The Evolution of the Southern Backcountry spared those corporate symbols and points of congregation of the fast food kingdom which have so homogenized the Ameri­ can landscape. The county seat of Lunenburg, bearing the same name as the county, is situated in the geographic center of the county and is not so much a town as an historical artifact.1 It consists of the county courthouse (which was rebuilt in 1827 after the 1787 edi­ fice burned to the ground), the sheriff's office, the health and welfare department, and directly across the street, a general store and filling station. If we have an hour to spare and enjoy sitting in the hot summer sun leaning against the Confederate soldiers' monu­ ment outside the courthouse, we might see a dozen people go in or out of those town buildings. Inside the courthouse, Mr. Roy Moore, clerk of the court, and his deputy, Grace Marshall, are pleased to spend some time with an inquiring stranger. The county sheriff and his deputies have little difficulty maintainingorder in a county where the incidence of serious crime is relatively slight. The wel­ fare department building, which used to serve as the library until insufficient use caused the county's residents to abandon the li­ brary in favor of a bookmobile service from a neighboringcounty, is quiet by big­city standards. And across the street there is sel­ dom need for Mark Osborne to put on extra help to pump gas while he is selling groceries. Driving northeast toward Victoria, we do come across some­ thing more akin to the community for which we are searching. It is not a strikingly pretty place; in fact, it looks as if there has been little new construction in the town since the Depression, but at least there are some shops, a bank, and a few restaurants. There are even a few factories in Victoria (a small shoe company, a divi­ sion of the Scovill Manufacturing Company which makes zipper tapes, and a knitwear factory) which provide jobs for some of Lunenburg's residents. Just a few miles farther up the road, in Kenbridge, there are several large warehouses run by the Commonwealth Tobacco Com­ pany, but many of the local residents fear that the town's days as a center of Virginia's tobacco trade are numbered. Most of the ware­ houses are now located to the west in Danville, and the Kenbridge warehouses seem to be losing ground. Kenbridge folk do, however, Prologue 5 consider themselves just a bit more sophisticated than their Victoria neighbors. It's often said that Kenbridge residents will go out to one of the town's three restaurants to eat dinner late in the evening, while Victoria residents nearly always eat an early supper at home. And while most businesspeople visitingthe county would probably choose the Holiday Inn over in South Hill in Brunswick County, Kenbridge does have one small motel while Victoria has none. Many years ago, the Patrick Henry Hotel served as a stop­ ping place for visitors to Victoria, but that building, which stood empty for many years, has finally encountered the wrecking crane and bulldozer, and...