Winchester Tales

03/12/2026

Reverend Alexander Balmain paced the floor of his small log house at the corner of Cameron Street and Fairfax Lane in Wi******er. Beneath his feet was a large rug he had recently purchased from England, said to be the first Persian rug used in a home in town. Only a week earlier he had performed the wedding of James Madison and Dolley Payne Todd at Harewood. Now troubling news had arrived from Middletown. The newly married Dolley had fallen ill while visiting Major Isaac Hite Jr. at his home called Old Hall. Dr. Cornelius Baldwin had been sent for, and Balmain feared that the joyful ceremony he had just presided over might be followed by tragedy.

At Old Hall, Dolley rested while her husband and Major Hite passed the hours in quiet conversation. The great house of Belle Grove had not yet been built, and the old home stood just west of where it would later rise. Hite spoke of his plans for a new mansion and of the builder he had hired, James Bond. Madison offered to write to his friend Thomas Jefferson for advice on the design. Within a week Dolley recovered, and the Madisons returned home to Montpelier. Madison did send the letter, and Jefferson returned sketches and notes that shaped the house completed in 1797. Old Hall later disappeared, but its memory remains as the place where the Madison honeymoon was briefly overshadowed by worry—and where the life of a future First Lady nearly slipped away before her remarkable story had fully begun.

03/12/2026

The south side of Piccadilly Street between Cameron and Loudoun Streets in the 1950s.

03/12/2026

Ever thought about writing a book about history or creating a historical novel? Don’t know where to begin?
Well, we have you covered! Author Millicent Hughes shows you the path and also helps steer you away from the common mistakes made in historical research. These are truly valuable lessons…and I hope to see you all in the Benham Room at the Handley Library on Saturday March 28, 2026 at 11am.

The French & Indian War Foundation is an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) non-profit organization that depends on its members and donations from the public to further its mission. The Foundation receives no state, local or federal funding, nor does it have an endowment on which to draw for support of its ope...

03/12/2026

This is going to be an incredible event! The man, the myth, the legend, Dr. Warren Hofstra, talking about George Washington in the backcountry! As a young George Washington would say in his surveying days, “Be there or be square!”…March 27 @ 5:30 pm - 8:00 pm at the George Washington Hotel.

Dr. Warren Hofstra will present "George Washington and the Virginia Backcountry: A Young Man in a New World". Learn about George Washington's life in the Wi******er area. Enjoy colonial-era appetizers and cash bar provided by the George Washington Hotel. Lecture is free and open to the public, but r...

03/11/2026

For generations of folks from Wi******er, a trip to Harpers Ferry has been almost a rite of passage. We have walked its narrow streets, stood where the rivers meet, and looked across the same hills that watched history unfold. One small brick building there—the old armory fire engine house—has a story to tell. In October of 1859, that modest structure became the last stand of John Brown during the dramatic raid on the federal arsenal. The building sat within the grounds of the Harpers Ferry Armory, as seen in this Civil War era picture - and for years - visitors came to see the little engine house that newspapers soon began calling “John Brown’s Fort.”

But the building did not remain in it’s original location. When the armory grounds were redeveloped in the 1890s, preservationists carefully dismantled the structure and moved it a short distance up the hill to the campus of Storer College in 1909. There it stood as a powerful symbol of freedom and struggle. In the early 1900s, the little brick fort even traveled across states—taken apart again and displayed at exhibitions such as the Chicago World’s Fair before eventually returning to Harpers Ferry. Today the building once again stands close to its original location, quietly reminding visitors of the moment that helped ignite the Civil War. And for many of us from Wi******er, every visit feels familiar—because Harpers Ferry, with all its history and winding streets, has always held a small and special place in our hearts…

03/10/2026

See you there?

03/09/2026

Where was New Epsom?

I recently ran across an article in the Virginia Gazette dated September 17, 1789 describing a spa/resort called New Epsom which was 2.5 miles from Stephensburg (Stephen's City today). I plotted 2.5 miles on the Google Earth image shown here to gauge the range of where it could have been. A great mystery....anyone know?

03/09/2026

An early form of text messaging from Allie in Fawcett Gap to her sister Mrs. Lemuel Spaid in Wi******er…dated December 16, 1912…

“My dear sister, we will butcher next Tuesday if nothing prevents. Ollie will bring your hog in Wednesday morning if nothing happens. I hope you are all well, come out soon. From your sister, Allie.”

03/07/2026

Remembering
Roy A. “Buzzy” Cather, Jr.

I just learned that Roy A. “Buzzy” Cather, Jr., passed away on March 1st at his home in Florida. He grew up at 510 West Clifford Street, spending his boyhood days in downtown Wi******er. I always remember the old picture of the Cather men preparing for Buzzy’s 1945 Soap Box Derby race with his father, Roy Sr. overseeing the construction, while his younger brother “Pushie” Cather lends a hand. In the 1960s, Buzzy became a familiar figure on Valley Avenue at the old Keckley Mill, where the Cather family operated their business called Old Mill Storage, a business that remained an important part of Wi******er’s apple trade for decades. Even into the 1980s, apples were still being packed there in wooden barrels, a reminder of an earlier era in the Shenandoah Valley orchard industry.

Buzzy understood that the apple business was built as much on relationships as it was on fruit. Through Old Mill Storage he helped local orchard growers connect with buyers and markets, serving as a bridge between the Valley’s orchardists and the end customers who depended on their harvest. His work helped many growers find greater success, and the business continued to evolve when he partnered with a friend and fellow orchardman to form Virginia Pride Fruit Packers. After many years of success, he sold his portion of the business and later continued his work in the industry with the New York Apple Marketing Cooperative.

In the late 1980s he married the love of his life, Janet Pyne Cather, and together they built a family that carries his memory forward. He is survived by his daughters Paige Cather (Paulie) of Ocala, Florida, and Lyndsey Cather Hobson (Stan) of McIntosh, New Mexico; stepdaughters Shari Pyne Stefanko (Nick) of Wi******er and Wendy Pyne Sielaty (David) of Raleigh, along with grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will continue his story. For many of us who pass the old mill site on Valley Avenue, it is impossible not to think of the Cather family and their role in Wi******er’s apple industry from 1936 well into the 1980s. Buzzy was part of that legacy, and Wi******er will not forget him...

03/05/2026

In the autumn of 1777, the quiet town of Wi******er, Virginia faced a problem it had never imagined. Prisoners from the American victory at the Battle of Trenton began arriving in the Valley—British soldiers and their Hessian allies. By October 23, nearly 750 prisoners had gathered in Wi******er, a town whose entire population was only about 1,000 residents. Families suddenly found themselves housing enemy soldiers in barns, spare rooms, and temporary shelters while officials searched for a better solution.

The Virginia Council soon advised Governor Patrick Henry that the town simply could not sustain the burden. Orders were given to build a proper prisoner barracks several miles outside town. Colonel David Kennedy of the Frederick County militia was directed to oversee the project, and Congress authorized $20,000 to construct a facility capable of housing 1,000 prisoners. On January 31, 1778, Kennedy contracted with local builder William Hobday, who agreed to erect the barracks for £13,000 Virginia currency on land about four miles from town.

The structure Hobday planned was astonishing in scale for the frontier Valley. The barracks would be 640 feet long, 18 feet wide, and two stories high—eight feet on the first floor and seven on the second. A six-foot-wide gallery would run the full length of the upper story, with steps placed where needed. The building would contain 30 partitioned rooms, heated by 15 double stone chimneys, each room fitted with a shuttered window. Inside were 1,000 wooden berths, each designed to sleep two prisoners. Solid logs formed the rear wall, which also served as part of the surrounding stockade yard that enclosed the compound.

To imagine the scale of it, picture a building stretching across the open farm fields along today’s Poorhouse Road—longer than two modern football fields laid end to end. In those quiet fields outside Wi******er once stood what was intended to be one of the largest Revolutionary War prisoner barracks in America.

But the project soon ran into difficulty. Disputes arose over the construction and the terms of the contract with Hobday. Though work began and portions of the great log structure were raised, the project stalled. The barracks were only partially completed and were never fully finished, leaving behind an ambitious plan that history remembers more for its scale than for its completion.

03/04/2026

On March 23, 1862, brothers George and Bushrod Washington stood with the 2nd Virginia Infantry along the stone wall on Sandy Ridge during the First Battle of Kernstown. Confederate troops were shifting into position to support General Richard Garnett’s line while Union artillery fired from Pritchard’s Hill. Through the smoke the men could see Federal regiments from Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana advancing across the fields. The Washington brothers—relatives of President George Washington through his brother John Augustine Washington—fought beside their comrades for hours as the Confederate line struggled to hold and ammunition ran low.

During the battle George was seriously wounded and fell beside the wall while Bushrod continued firing until he too was hit. When the order to retreat was finally given, the brothers tried to make their way together across the Rose Hill Farm fields west of the battlefield, refusing to leave one another behind. Weak from their wounds, they could go no farther and were captured by Union cavalry among the fallen scattered across the fields of Kernstown. Both men survived imprisonment and were later exchanged. George returned home to Jefferson County, too weakened to continue service, while Bushrod remained in the Confederate army and after the war settled in Charles Town, West Virginia.

03/04/2026

On May 25, 1813, twenty-year-old Adjutant William Ball Jr. of Wi******er was shot by a sentry while serving at Fort Nelson in Portsmouth during the War of 1812. The musket ball struck him just below the heart and passed through his lung. Carried to the barracks, the young officer knew the wound was mortal. When a fellow soldier from the Fourth Virginia Regiment—who had enlisted with him in Wi******er the year before—asked if he had any last words for his parents, Ball could only reply, “God bless them.” He soon died, thinking of his family home on the corner of Cork and Loudoun Streets. Nearly two centuries later, in 2007, volunteers clearing the old Methodist churchyard in Portsmouth uncovered his worn gravestone, which confirmed the tragic account: “Adjutant William Ball Jr. of Wi******er, Virginia. Killed by a sentry at Fort Nelson, May 25, 1813.”

News of the death reached Wi******er in June and deeply affected the town. Ball had been widely known since boyhood, the son of William Ball Sr., a Revolutionary War veteran who had served with General Daniel Morgan at Cowpens. The young man had proudly joined the Wi******er Rifles on Braddock Street, eager to follow his father into service. A memorial was held at the Old Stone Presbyterian Church where Reverend William Hill—who had earlier preached at Morgan’s funeral—spoke again as the town gathered in mourning. Citizens walked together from the Ball family home to the church, passing Morgan’s grave, and many wore black crepe on their arms for a month in memory of the young officer whose life ended so suddenly far from home.