Frances Stebbins
Correspondent
Since it got its new director, Fran Ferguson, and her assistant, Alex Burke, at the start of this year, The Salem Museum has become known to a lot more residents of Western Virginia.
That was what was envisioned by the board of the parent Salem Historical Society when Ferguson, a native of Salem and well-experienced in marketing non-profit cultural groups, took over. Burke, a recent Roanoke College graduate with a feel for preserving the past, is also off to a good start in his career.
Two events have brought many newcomers to the historic house on East Main Street with its beautiful rear addition occupied less than a decade ago.
The first was a Book and Author Day held in late spring that brought many Western Virginia writers of regional histories, memoirs of interesting lives and devotional material to the museum on a Saturday. A lot of sharing of ideas and tips for those of us who live by our writing made it a fun day.
For its 25th Year, the historical society threw a social evening to let residents of nearby counties know how it has contributed to the city since 1992 when a small group formed to “Save Old Salem.” Their goal was to prevent the tearing down of the few pre-Civil War structures that were still around. One of these was the 1846 brick house near Longwood Park which had regressed from a home store to a fraternity lodging and showed its age.
The store, famously moved a block up the hill to its present site nearer the historic East Hill Cemetery, was doubled in size a decade later and its grounds beautified. As one of the older communities west of the Blue Ridge Salem appropriately draws on its 18th Century heritage.
The second big draw has been Burke’s special contribution. That’s the planning and arranging of Civil War Saturdays, a four-week July event in which re-enactors with their guns and uniforms come, even from Yankee country, to fascinate many with “living history” on the museum lawn. This drew attention of local newspapers and TV stations.
Others of us were drawn to showings of several documentary films including the VMI cadet Confederate victory at New Market, the award-winning “Hunter’s Raid” which directly affected the Salem area and the last one on the Battle of Manassas scheduled to end the series on July 22.
The films, said Burke, filled the second-floor meeting room with more than 70 people. Seeing “Hunter’s Raid” greatly clarified for me the sequence of events which took place in early summer 1864 and led to the only battle, not much more than a skirmish, that took place at nearby Hanging Rock, the pass in the mountains northwest of Salem.
Local walkers can re-live the retreat of the Union commander David Hunter on the Battlefield Trail of two miles from US 460 at Lakeside strip mall to the juncture of Virginia 311 and 419. Markers are along the way that follows Mason Creek.
Hunter has the nasty distinction, the film asserts, of introducing total war to enemy territory with his burning of barns, homes and crops in the Shenandoah Valley where his vengeance inspired Union generals Sheridan and Sherman in their Valley and Georgia campaigns which ended the war the next spring.
After heavily damaging the rail and manufacturing center of Lynchburg, through plundering by Union troops, Hunter fell out of favor and left the army before the final surrender. “Hunter’s Raid” features familiar scenes in Lexington and Lynchburg and others of mountain meadows even closer to Salem and Craig County.
A Craig resident, at the showing, further enlightened us by pointing out that as Hunter’s general retreated through the pass toward West Virginia Union country he was turned aside from torching the historic courthouse in New Castle.
An interesting point revealed in “Hunter’s Raid” is the presence of a Cincinnati Gazette news reporter who traveled with Hunter and faithfully recorded the destruction in Lynchburg, Bedford, Buchanan and other familiar places. Wartime photos and drawings also were born in this period.
New residents of the Roanoke Valley who care about history can enrich their lives by dropping in at the free museum when it’s open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. or Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Volunteer docents are always needed there.
