WAR BONDSThe Songs & Letters of WWII Tickets are $20.00 each. Play is at 8 p.m. on Thursday and Friday at Chastain theatre. Tickets may be purchased at Triangle Florist in Halifax and at the Prizery in South Boston. They may be purchased by mail. Check payable to the Halifax County Historical Society, P. O. Box 601, South Boston, etc. Be sure to specify the day (Thursday or Friday) It is open seating.
February 21, 2006Speaker Dr. Sandra Treadway, Deputy Director of the Library of Virginia, will speak on Virginia Women in History at The Prizery in South Boston. .
February 10 & 11, 2006 The 225th Anniversary of the Crossing of the Dan. In the Southern Campaign Morgan's retreat, which began at Cowpens, became a race after the Council of War at Guilford Court House on 9 February, 1781. The race ended with the successful Crossing of the Dan at Boyd's and Irvine's ferries on the 13th and 14th of that month. • • • See news stories, photos, video, and hear the VFH radio broadcast of the Crossing of the Dan 225th Anniversary Celebration here.
May 8, 2004
Saturday, May 8, at 2 p.m. the Society will present a program by the Honorable Frank Slayton, who will give a talk on special events during the Revolutionary War. The program will be held in the church in Providence during the Noland Day celebration. (Click here for full story.) The Society's Executive Committee has approved the naming of a special window at The Prizery in memory of W. Carroll Headspeath, local historian and author of the Crossing of the Dan. This window is located on the second floor overlooking the Dan River near the crossing site and will be surrounded by a permanent exhibit depicting the crossing. Doug Powell is head of an adhoc committee planning the exhibit.
March 10, 2004
The guest speaker, Kim Chen, during a joint meeting of the Halifax Woman's Club and the Halifax County Historical Society, Chen shared insight into the county's inventory of historical structures as well as possible avenues to save existing but endangered buildings. (Click here for full story.)
January 7, 2004 Gazette-Virginian Halifax County's Past — Halifax County native and historian Faye Royster Tuck is the author of a book entitled, "Yesterday - Gone Forever," a collection of articles chronicling the persons, institutions and events throughout Halifax County's past. (Click here for full story.)
March 2003 The director of the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation, Dr. Jon Kukla, is scheduled to present a lecture April 10 at 7 p.m. in the historic Halifax Court House. This will be open to the public with a book signing immediately afterwards. Dr. Kukla’s lecture will draw upon his narrative history, A Wilderness So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America, published by Alfred A. Knopf in April 2003. The Louisiana Purchase: Then and Now On the first anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, the American historian David Ramsay proclaimed that along with “the establishment of independence, and of our present constitution . . . the acquisition of Louisiana, is the greatest political blessing ever conferred on these states.” A century and a half later, on the 150th anniversary, Bernard DeVoto echoed Ramsay’s perspective. The Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and editor of Harper’s magazine concluded that “no event in all American history — not the Civil War, nor the Declaration of Independence, nor even the signing of the Constitution — was more important.” Just fifty years ago, DeVoto also contended that the peaceful transfer of 883,072 square miles of territory from Spain, to France, to the United States 1803 was “still too momentous to be understood.” On the eve of the 200th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase (and with 400th anniversaries of Jamestown Island and Plymouth Rock not far in the future), perhaps now we can appreciate the long-term human consequences of the Louisiana Purchase more clearly. Starting at New Orleans in 1803, five million Americans along the Atlantic seaboard began an encounter with diversity — with urban Catholics, Creoles, French, Spanish, Africans, West Indians, and Native Americans — that has been sustained by geographic expansion and immigration throughout the past two centuries. Ramsay and DeVoto couldn’t yet see it, but perhaps the Louisiana Purchase was a turning-point at our halfway mark toward an inclusive national history. Looking back from the year 2003, we can marvel at who we have become — the very antithesis of John Winthrop’s Boston or Thomas Jefferson’s yeoman republic — and wonder what the next two centuries have in store. A Note About The Author A native of small-town Wisconsin, Jon Kukla accepted his B.A. from Carthage College (1970) and his M.A. (1971) and Ph.D. (1980) from the University of Toronto. In Richmond, Virginia, from 1973 through 1990, he directed historical research and publishing at the Library of Virginia and dabbled in documentary editing, historic preservation, and archaeology. He spent the next decade in the French Quarter, as director of the Historic New Orleans Collection from 1992 to 1998, adding museum exhibits, television, and historic building renovation to his bag of tricks. He returned to the Old Dominion in 2000 as director of the Patrick Henry Memorial Foundation. His books, articles, and reviews include “Order and Chaos in Early America” in the American Historical Review (1985) and The Bill of Rights: A Lively Heritage (1987). Mr. Kukla currently resides at several hundred yards from Patrick Henry’s grave at Red Hill plantation with his cat, Talleyrand, and Jennifer’s rabbit. Publishers Weekly, February 24, 2003 A WILDERNESS SO IMMENSE: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America Jon Kukla. Knopf, $30 (352p) ISBN 0-375-40812-6 Until a better one comes along, which is unlikely, this is now the book to read of the growing crop of works on the Louisiana Purchase in this bicentennial year. It differs from Charles Cerami's bracing Jefferson's Great Gamble (Forecasts, Jan. 27) by its deeper foundation of scholarly knowledge, from Roger Kennedy's overstriving Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause (Forecasts, Feb. 3) by being less idiosyncratic. Kukla (coauthor of Patrick Henry) offers up a splendid, beautifully written narrative focused tightly on the complex historic origins of the Purchase and on the diplomacy that pulled it off. Necessarily, his tale takes in the whole world, including the aspirations of Napoleon’s failed forays into the Western Hemisphere and his resulting need for cash. But Kukla stays firmly on this side of the Atlantic. Jefferson takes center stage, but his Federalist opponents, whose sometimes disunionist machinations kept matters complex, are in the wings. Kukla's portraits of the principal diplomats--Robert Livingston and James Monroe on the American side; Talleyrand, François de Barbé-Marbois and Napoleon on the French--deftly illuminate the crucial mix of personality, circumstance and skill that made the United States a continental nation so early in its existence. Unlike many other historians, Kukla favors none of the story's characters but evenhandedly gives all their due. The book lacks only a grand theme to match its grand subject--what most contemporaries and all historians since have judged to be one of the most significant events in the nation's history. Nevertheless, this judicious, aptly illustrated work will gratify all its readers. Rarely does a work of history combine grace of writing with such broad authority. (April.)
February 2003
The Halifax County Historical Society reorganized in 2002. The first order of business was to plan two programs for the community. Dr. James Robertson, noted Civil War scholar, present two lectures for the society. The first was held May 14, 2002, at St. John's Church in Halifax and second, was held during a breakfast at Berry Hill Plantation May 15, 2002. Dr. Robertson shared his knowledge of the Civil War and details on his newly published book, Standing Like A Stone Wall. Many of his books were made available for purchase at both presentations. The second program was presented October 27, 2002, by Gordon Lohr, Director of the APVA Historic Property Revolving Fund, and Jack Zehmer, Director of the state Department of Historic Resources Capital Regional Office, Halifax County's historic properties are among its most valuable resources. The program discussed strategies for saving, preserving, and capitalizing on these assets. Jack Zehmer, before joining the Department of Historic Resources, was the executive director of the Historic Richmond Foundation, where he directed the real estate and advocacy programs. A native of Dinwiddie County, he received his bachelor and master's degrees from the University of Virginia. Gordon Lohr is a well-known realtor and antique appraiser from the Richmond area. The APVA of which he is the director, purchases publicly significant historic Virginia properties that are endangered. All of the society programs are open to the public. It is the intent of the society to have two major programs each year and welcomes suggestions from the membership. |
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This traveling exhibit is a photo essay update of the path-breaking exhibition originally produced in 1984-86 by Hampton University Museum in cooperation with the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. The exhibit, sponsored by the Halifax County Historical Society, will be located in