Our Whirlwind Trip to the Bagby Homeland - Two Days in Virginia
February 23-24, 2005
Above: view from the general store toward Olive Bagby's house in Stevensville
Right: "Downtown Stevensville" -- the general store (empty) with antique Esso pump at intersection of Route 14 and The Trail.
"Stevensville is a small village in the County of King and
Queen, about six miles from the Court House, and eighteen from Tappahannock. It
is settled almost exclusively by Bagbys and their connections here and
hereabout....In fact, Stevensville is a Bagby town, there being only a
shoemaker, a tailor, a wheelwright, and a blacksmith, residents, who are not
Bagbys in whole or in part....These Bagbys are a very different sort of people
from myself, being hatchet-faced, white-haired, pious, Baptist folk -- given to
hard work and attention to business. They are indeed Baptists of the very first
water, and the whole country roundabout takes its tone from them. Everything is
Baptist, and everybody, old and young, male and female, black and white are
Baptists...Although the people about Stevensville are such Baptists, they are by
no means Hard-shelled or rigid. They live in fine style and entertain
handsomely.
" If we had stayed in Stevensville until Saturday we might have seen some fun. A
picnic, a tournament, and a temperance oration -- singular combination, and
illustrative of the character of the King and Queen people -- are to 'come off'
on that day, at the seat of Mr. Courtenay."
(quote from a letter from George W. Bagby to a friend, on p. 2 of "Dr. George
William Bagby: A Study of Virginia Literature 1850-1880 vol 1" by Joseph Leonard
King Jr., New York: Columbia University Press, 1927)
Left: Mattaponi Church, built for the Church of England and later converted to Baptist worship. Grave of Rev. Alfred Bagby. author of "King and Queen Co., VA", an early genealogical and historical reference, is here.
Right: Gravestone of Rev. Alfred Bagby (1828-1925) .
Left: King and Queen County Court House, old Courthouse Tavern, now a museum. To the left in the picture is the old county clerk's office.
Left: View from main intersection at King and Queen County Court House
Right: Appomattox Court House Tavern (formerly Clover Hill Tavern), built in 1819 (five years after my great-great-grandfather John W. Bagby was born in Clover Hill village in 1814)
Left: view of Clover Hill village at Appomattox Court House
Right: McLean House at Appomattox Court House, where Lee surrendered to Grant.
Left: Caroline (age 8) and Alison (age 11) at Clover Hill village
Right: Powhatan Court House Tavern, where Dr. George W. Bagby gave his famous lectures, "The Old Virginia Gentleman" and "Bacon and Greens" after the Civil War.
Below: Powhatan Court House, built in 1819, along the route of Lee's Retreat in 1865. Powhatan is across the Appomattox River from Gooch, VA, which was the residence of Henry Bagby who may be the father of Daniel Bagby our great-great-great-grandfather. There was a Daniel Bagby born in Powhatan in 1762, but also other records show a Daniel Bagby born 1767 in Buckingham County which is the next county north.
Above: Confederate memorial to Powhatan troop
Below right: Smithsonian exhibit on Farmville school integration case. The county removed all funding from county schools rather than improve the black schools or allow integration. This happened in 1951, three full years before Brown vs. the Board of Education. Farmville is the nearest big town to Appomattox Court House, and is halfway between Appomattox Court House and Lynchburg.
Above: Election poster for "States' Rights Democrats" who opposed integration and the general program of Harry Truman. Strom Thurmond was of course from South Carolina, not Virginia, but this was part of the general political scene at the time.