Mountain View Elementary School, Buena Vista, Virginia.  This is where I attended 4th grade and Mrs. Mackey was my teacher.  We were here only one year between when Dad stopped teaching and when we moved to North Carolina.  It has been renovated, of course, since I went there.

I liked Mrs. Mackey a lot and I did well in school.  But it was here that I experienced people not liking me because I was smart.  I was the new kid and apparently displaced a couple of people as the top performer in the class.  My guess is that they would have experienced that eventually in high school.  That also was the year that I started wearing glasses. 

I remember rehearsing a play, but I don't remember what it was about. I remember studying Virginia history.  And I remember attending Michael Coleman's birthday party.  I have a few other vague memories of that year, but not much that's worth mentioning.

This is pretty much all that is left of the first school that I attended--Fairfield High School.  Grades 1-12 were all in the same building and there was no kindergarten.  I attended school here in the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grades.

This memorial to the school is built where the steps used to be that led to the school entrance.  The school was demolished and a new elementary school was built just to the right of the old one.

As far as I know, pretty much everyone road the bus to school.  And we had to buy our own books.  So the first day or so of school in 1st grade, I took money to school to buy books from a 2nd grader who would come into the class to sell his or her books. And in 2nd grade, I would take my 1st grade books to the 1st grade classroom to sell & I would buy 2nd grade books from a 3rd grader.  

Here's a closeup of one of the signs on the memorial.

These are one set of my great-grandparents: John Graham Barnett, Sr. (1857 - 1907) and his wife Mamie Elizabeth Love (1864-1930).  They were both from Mecklenberg County, Virginia.  They had three daughters and two sons, one of whom was my grandfather: John Graham Barnett, Jr. He also was their oldest child.

I have been told that J G Sr was an itinerant preacher.  I think he may also have been an alcoholic.  In any case, the family life didn't seem to be too stable.  My grandfather was only 18 or 19 when his father died & he took on much of the responsibility of providing for his family, according to my mother.  

I'm pretty sure she got copies of these pictures from her cousin Thomas Barnett, who was a son of Thomas Jeffress Barnett, this couple's youngest child. 

Jane Catherine Dicken (1828-1912) was born in Henrico County, Virginia, and died there.  She was a daughter of Jane Lacy and Thomas S. Dicken and she was my great-great grandmother.  

Jane married Matthew Swain in 1848.  He was born in England and operated a store in Richmond somewhere.  They had seven children, including my great grandmother, Annie Lettie Swain. I don't know much about either of them.  But my mother had this picture of her.  

According to an online source, the Dicken's home was Brookfield, through which Dickens Road runs.  Supposedly the road was named for the family. Brookfield had an interesting history, according to the Henrico County Historical Society (http://www.henricohistoricalsociety.org/lostarchitecture.brookfieldplantation.html).  Here is a drawing of the house.

In 1800, Brookfield was a 2,000 acre plantation owned by the Prosser family. One of Prosser's slaves planned a massive slave uprising that failed because two slaves on another farm ratted him out and a severe thunderstorm impeded transportation and communications.  The ringleader and most of his buddies were captured, tried, and hanged.  In the mid-19th century, the house pictured above was enlarged but it burned to the ground in 1910.

An easy post.  This picture was taken around 1960, just before my family moved to North Carolina, and was published in The Lexington Gazette.  I am the second from the left in the middle row. Bly Ann Buzzard, one of my girlfriends at the time, is the dark-haired girl beside me. And at least four relatives are there. If you can read the names, all the Alexanders and Closes are related.  Eddie Howard was my next door neighbor.  Next door meaning over the fence, across a field, and over another fence. He was one of my closest friends at the time.  Probably because he lived the closest to me.

Here's a better copy of the picture. Well maybe a little better.

This is the marriage bond of Samuel C. Robinson and Margaret Ann Graham dated 1 August 1849.  Margaret was my third cousin three times removed.  These are the parents of the three men that I wrote about over the past three days. (By the way, this is one of over 90 marriage bonds that I identified & obtained copies of from the Rockbridge County courthouse in Lexington, Virginia.) 

Samuel Robinson was born in Richmond, Virginia.  I assume business brought him to the Shenandoah Valley.  The following excerpt is from an 1859 book entitled Iron Manufacturer's Guide to the Furnaces, Forges and Rolling Mills of the United States.

 

More information on Roaring Run Furnace can be found at http://www.go-virginia.com/Roaring-Run-Furnace/. According to that web site, Robinson bought the furnace in 1844 for $21,000 "to be paid in pig iron in four years time." Other facts include

• horses were used in towing the pig iron by boat on the James River and Kanawa Canal
• a lot in Lynchburg was used for storaging pig iron
• 45 laborers with teams were employed at the furnace
• 800 tons of iron was produced in 35 weeks in 1854 

Another blogger (http://showalter.blogspot.com/2012/01/watts-collection-documents-476-500.html) has posted a letter dated 17 Nov 1851 from Samuel C. Robinson to to William Watts asking him to send the power of attorney to vote the shares of his father at a stockholders’ meeting of the James River and Kanawha Canal Company to Dr Archibald Graham, whose presence in Richmond, Virginia, would be more certain.  Graham was Robinson's father-in-law. 

By January 1855, Robinson and Deane were in debt for $31,066 to a number of individuals and banks and the furnace and property were given in a deed of trust to others to be sold at auction to the highest bidder. Robinson and Deane were allowed to remain in possession of the property until they completed work on agricultural implements and machinery. 

In 1860, Robinson lived with his family in Richmond and was a lumber merchant. He valued his real estate at $60,000 and his personal estate at $30,000.  In 1870, he was still in Richmond, was a merchant in iron works, and he valued his personal estate at $1,000.  There was no value attached to his real estate.  I would attribute this drop in prosperity to the Civil War.  Also, his real estate value was likely based on slaves, as one source said he had 57 slaves associated with the furnace business.  

By 1880, before the age of 60, Samuel Robinson had passed away.  His wife and family had moved back to Rockbridge County and were living with her parents.

Washington College, Va.

26th June 1869

Dear Sir,

          With pleasure I inform you of the action of the faculty commending your son A. G. Robinson for uniform regularity of attendance upon his duties + for steady improvement in his studies during the past session.

                                Very respectfully,

                                          R. E. Lee

S. C. Robinson

Richmond, Va.

Because I wrote about Edward Trent Robinson & Powhatan Roberts Robinson in my last two posts, I thought I would research another of the brothers, Archibald Graham Robinson.  All I knew about him was that he was from Richmond, attended college in 1870, became a druggist and bank clerk in Staunton, and was married. Another fourth cousin three times removed.

So I searched Google images to see what I could find and was delighted to see this letter pop up from the Washington & Lee University library. The entry says the letter is not in Robert E. Lee's handwriting, but the signature is his.

I haven't been able to find his wife's name...but I'll keep looking!

Powhatan Roberts Robinson was the brother of Edward Trent Robinson about whom I wrote yesterday.  So he also is my fourth cousin three times removed. I didn't really know anything about either of these guys before I started researching them for my blog.  Powhatan caught my eye because of his unusual name.  Nevertheless, I was able to locate this picture of him.

Wikipedia says "Powhatan Roberts Robinson (1867-1939) was president of the New York Sporting Goods Company and an author. He was born in 1867 in Virginia. He died in 1939." 

Based on that little bit of information, I found several articles published in The New York Times in the 1910s that indicated he was involved in a sporting club and a student acting club in New York. From U.S. and New York Census records, I can tell that he married; but I did not see any indication that he had any children.

I also found this article about him in a November 1915 issue of The Squib Review.

And this ad is from a May 1916 issue of Forest and Stream: