Welcome

Back to the Gift Shop | Augusta County History | About Our Logo | About Us | Office Hours & Directions

Thank you for visiting the Augusta County Historical Society's home on the web. Please note that in order to provide you with even more information, we have undertaken some slight reorganization efforts with our site. Namely, information once included in the 'About Us' link above may now be found here, on our opening page. (Please use the navigation bar just above this paragraph to easily access all the information on our opening page.) We have also added a new section titled 'Reading List' (accessible from the upper navigation frame) for your enjoyment. Thanks again for visiting, and we hope you enjoy your stay.

The Augusta County Historical Society was founded in 1964 by persons interested in Augusta County history from Staunton, Waynesboro, and Augusta County. It adopted a constitution and by-laws and elected officers, including a board of directors. Membership was open to all persons interested in the history of Augusta County.

Several years ago, the society opened its first office, located in the Augusta County government center in Verona. Since its inception, the society has held meetings throughout the area, including in local churches, schools, public buildings, and at Mary Baldwin College.

The work of the society has included documenting local landmark buildings, compiling a bibliography of local history books, supporting the creation of historic districts, erecting historic highway markers, and coming to the defense of historic buildings when they were threatened.

In 1964 it began publishing the Augusta Historical Bulletin, a journal appearing at first twice a year and more recently in a larger annual volume. Members of the society started a successful campaign to preserve historic Augusta County public records stored in the Augusta County Courthouse and they received gifts of manuscripts and rare books to the society for its collections. Volunteer archivists care for the collection.

Society members have helped update surveys of historic Augusta County buildings and photograph them to record their condition. Other projects included recording epitaphs, providing information about local genealogical researchers to persons interested in local and family history, supporting the publication of local history books, honoring people who contributed notably to local history, and recognizing student achievement in history in the schools.

Most recently, the society has sponsored an annual banquet and raffle, hosted historical tours in the U.S. and abroad of significance to Augusta County history, and has launched a newsletter, Augusta Annals.

The opening of the R. R. Smith Center for History and the Arts (scheduled for late 2005) will provide the Augusta County Historical Society with a permanent home for its offices, library, collections, galleries, and meeting rooms.

Historical Background of Augusta County, Staunton and Waynesboro

     Augusta County is located in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, between the Blue Ridge Mountains on the east and the Allegheny Mountains on the west. It is the second largest county in Virginia, and has within its borders two independent cities, Staunton (the county seat) with a population around 25,000 and Waynesboro with a population around 18,000. There are a number of small towns with interesting histories in all parts of the county.

Although sites associated with early Native American groups have been found in the county, at the time of early settlement of the Valley by Europeans, there were no resident Native Americans in the area that is now Augusta County.

The first settlers arrived in the 1720s from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and from eastern Virginia. Some were German-born or the Pennsylvania-born children of German-speaking Protestant immigrants from the Palatinate and other areas bordering the Rhine River. These were Lutheran, Reformed, or Brethren. The greatest number of early Augusta settlers were from the province of Ulster in the north of Ireland, or were the Pennsylvania and Maryland-born children of these Ulster Scots or Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Many early settlers took up land on the 112,000-acre tract that the colonial government granted to William Beverley. English and African-Americans were also among the early settlers in the area.

Augusta County was created from Orange County in 1738. For seven years, until the population grew large enough, Augusta’s records were kept in Orange. In 1745, Augusta elected a sheriff, a vestry, a county court, a minister, and a clerk of court. A courthouse was built on the same site in Staunton (originally called Beverley’s Mill Place) as the current courthouse. The county’s records have been kept continuously at the courthouse since 1745. In that year, the county included all of present southwestern Virginia, most of present West Virginia and even stretched to the Mississippi River. As people began to settle in those western areas, new counties were cut off from Augusta, beginning in 1769 with Botetourt County, then Rockingham and Rockbridge in 1778.

Augusta County contributed many soldiers and a number of officers to the American Revolutionary cause. In 1781, Staunton served briefly as the state capital when the legislature met here after fleeing the British in the eastern part of the state.

In the early 19th century, the county became an important producer of wheat, and milling was a significant aspect of the local economy. Cyrus McCormick, invented the reaper, which revolutionized agriculture around the world, at his family’s farm, “Walnut Grove” at Steele’s Tavern in southern Augusta County on the Rockbridge line.

The county was an important early transportation center, with the Valley Turnpike coming through it north-south, and the Parkersburg Turnpike linking the area to the Ohio River. In 1854, the Virginia Central Railroad reached Staunton, providing access to Richmond, the capital, for goods and passengers. This rail link made Staunton significant to the Confederacy during the Civil War as a supply center, especially for agricultural products of the prosperous county farms.

Augusta County has long been a center of education. Among schools that have flourished here for more than a century have been the Virginia School for the Deaf and Blind, Augusta Female Seminary (now Mary Baldwin College), Virginia Female Institute (now Stuart Hall School) in Staunton and Fishburne Military School in Waynesboro. Earlier schools included Mossy Creek Academy run by Jed Hotchkiss, who became General T.J. “Stonewall” Jackson’s mapmaker, Augusta Military Academy in Ft. Defiance, Staunton Military Academy in Staunton, and Fairfax Hall in Waynesboro.

BACK TO TOP

About Our Logo

The artwork on the society logo was taken from a tombstone in the Glebe Burying Ground, one of the oldest cemeteries in the county with stones dating back to the 18th century. The graveyard is located on what was once the Glebe Farm -- land that Augusta County was required to supply to its Anglican minister. In the colonial period, there was no separation of church and state and the Anglican church (now Episcopalian) was part of the government and supported by taxes. The people buried in the cemetery are county citizens who lived nearby.

For a number of years now the historical society has been charged with maintaining the cemetery, which is located southwest of Staunton. Before that, the Daughters of the American Revolution oversaw its upkeep in the 20th century. Buried within the one-acre plot are at least six Revolutionary War soldiers, one member of the House of Burgesses, and three people who were killed in an Indian raid. Although many of the stones bear the names of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, one stone is written in German.

The flourish on the logo is half of what visitors would see on the top of Mary Trimble’s tombstone. Her stone is not only the oldest dated stone in the cemetery, but is rare because it is a coffin-shaped ledger stone meaning that the long stone lies flat on the ground and instead of being rectangular, it is shaped like an 18th-century coffin. The tombstone carver added some of his own personality with the folksy carving at the top. Then he chipped out the following inscription:

“Here, Lyes, the Body of Mary Trimble, who departed, This Life Feb. 18th in the Year of Our Lord 1770. Grave to All you that Come. My Grave To See. As I am Now So Must You Bee. Repent. In Time make No Delay. In the Bloom of Youth I was Snatched Away.”

BACK TO TOP

About Us

The mission of the Augusta County Historical Society is to study, collect, preserve, publish, educate about, and promote the history of Augusta County and its communities. The society also strives to make the citizens of Augusta County aware of their heritage.

 

BACK TO TOP

 

Office Hours and Directions

 

Office Phone — (540) 248-4151
Office hours — T, TH, F, 9 a.m. - Noon

Mailing Address:
P.O. Box 686, Staunton, VA 24402

Directions to office:

The Augusta County Historical Society is now located on the third floor of the R.R. Smith Center for History and Art. This restored 19th-century railroad hotel is located at 20 South New Street in downtown Staunton. A parking garage is located across the street from the center, which houses a research library, classrooms, a lecture hall, and two exhibit galleries.

BACK TO TOP