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04 April 2006 -
Tuesday
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Early this morning we
noticed a black sedan enter the parking lot and stop near the van. We peeked out the windows and could see the
driver was really interested in the van.
It must have been quite a strange sight as the top was up and he had
probably not seen anything like it before.
Soon another vehicle can in and parked next the camper. Now two men
were standing outside looking us over.
As it appeared that an encounter might be eminent Fred got out and
approached them. He explained that we
had permission from Mr. McCloud to park there. Apparently they were waiting for their car pool rides and this
is were they parked each day, and all they wanted to know was whether they
had woken us up. Either way it surely
was something different in their usual workday to see the unique Sportsmobile
camped out in their parking spots! We started the day by
driving west out Virginia Route
53 to look for the Joseph C. Scruggs
home site. We stopped at the
Cunningham Methodist Church where we found the gravestone of our
great-granduncle James E. Scruggs.
At a likely location
we turned off the main road onto a driveway and took it back to a farmhouse
where we found Jerry, the property manager.
We asked whether there were any family burial sites on the property in
the hopes that we would be lucky and find the graves of our ggg-grandparents
Joseph and Fanny Sheperd Scruggs.
Jerry advised us that he knew of two such places and would take us to
them. Off we went down faintly rutted
trails over hills and through, meadows until we spotted a copse of trees that
signified we had arrived at the first site.
We investigated the area where we found an old rusted wire fence that
had been erected to protect the area. Unfortunately we did not find any grave
markers, and as such believe this place to be a possible burial ground of
slaves. At the second site we did
find the grave marker of a Civil War Veteran named Reavis D. Bragg. He not being any known kin to us we
abandoned the search and drove to Scottsville in Albemarle County via Route 6
where we ate breakfast. Scottsville
is remembered within the history of our Scruggs ancestors as the location
where on April 17, 1861, just one day after Virginia seceded from the
Union, James, Abram and Samuel
Scruggs left home and enlisted as Privates in Company C, of the 19th Virginia
Infantry Regiment that was also known as the "Scottsville
Guards". From here we moved
on southwest into Nelson County were we had planned to search out |
the home site of our gggg-grandfather and Revolutionary War patriot,
Samuel Scott Scruggs. Nelson County is also the
location of Walton’s Mountain made famous by Earl Hamner who wrote about the fictitious Walton
Family in his books and on his television series, both which were
inspired by his boyhood in the Virginia foothills of the Blue Ridge
Mountains. As
luck would have it we spotted the County Visitor’s Center located on U.S.
Route 29 in the county seat, Lovingston.
Here we obtained good maps and directions that helped us to locate the
aforementioned Scruggs home site. The
county library was housed within the same building so we were able to examine
their genealogical collection where we obtained some worthwhile information
that may assist us in solving a family mystery concerning a non-paternity
event that possibly occurred in our Scruggs line at the time they were
residing within this county. For more
information see the Samuel
Scott Scruggs DNA Page on our website.
Prior to leaving the library we promised to send them our family
history data on the Scruggs family of Nelson county. Using our new maps we
were able to follow the local roads through the hollows along Rockfish Creek
until we finally came upon tiny village of Rockfish, a place also known to
fans of The Walton’s. Soon we
were upon the convergence of the Rockfish and Dutch Creeks where we walked
the property, took pictures, and tried to image how it was over 200 years
ago.
Samuel S. Scruggs, Sr. home site, Nelson Co., VA Subsequently we drove back
up Route 6 to Rockfish Gap and into the Shenandoah Valley at Interstate
64. We then headed south on
Interstate 81 to exit 101, a distance of about 120 miles. It was a long day and Claytor Lake State Park where we
camped overnight for $20. It was here
that we cooked our first real dinner.
Tom made chicken breasts that he wrapped in foil and placed on the gas
grill. The dinner also included
canned peas, carrots and seasoned rice. Topped it off with an apple we
shared. The next morning when we
awoke we noticed another van near us that was equipped with the Sportsmobile
pop-top. It was an older vehicle that
had apparently been sent to the factory to have the top and some cabinets
installed. We rated the Claytor Lake
Park as average with a 3. |
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