Historic Lexington Foundation is celebrating National Preservation Month this May with two programs focusing on the cultural heritage and conservation of the special landscapes of the Rockbridge region. Both programs are free and open to the public.
On Sunday, May 18, beginning at 2 p.m. at Kendal at Lexington, architectural historian Dan Pezzoni of Lexington-based Landmark Preservation Associates will present a slide-illustrated talk entitled “Wrapt in Deep Mystery: Native American Ritual Stone Construction in Rockbridge County.”
Most students of indigenous history are aware that native cultures created earthworks and other modified landscapes that were likely used for ceremonial and spiritual practices. Some of those sites, such as Serpent Mound in Ohio, are well known. Others, on both public and private lands, are less well known.
After years of research and documentation in the Appalachians and Great Valley, Pezzoni has amassed evidence that Virginia is home to thousands of ritual stone structures built by native peoples in centuries past.
His presentation on Sunday will focus on structures located in Rockbridge County and environs, including Cole Mountain, North Mountain Gap, Petites Gap, and House Mountain.
Some of the structures are simple in appearance: stone piles that might be mistaken for field clearing piles - except that there may be a hundred of them in a small area. Other structures are more complex: carefully crafted stone cairns, serpent effigies with boulder heads, enclosures where native vision practice may have occurred, and wall-like structures that run for miles on mountaintops. The serpent effigies are representational -- they depict serpent forms - which relates them to the allied native artistic medium of rock art.
Pezzoni will propose interpretations for the structures, consistent with what is known about Southeastern native cultures and beliefs through ethnographic studies and comparison to other forms of material culture. As a reporter with the Rockbridge County News remarked in 1893 about a stone mound that once stood in North Mountain Gap, the structures have “always been wrapt in deep mystery.”
Rounding out Preservation Month, HLF will also present a second program, this one advancing community knowledge of several important tools for preserving significant cultural, agricultural, and open-space landscapes throughout the region.
On Saturday, May 24, at 2 p.m. at Manly Memorial Baptist Church, Taylor Cole of Conservation Partners will present “Conservation of Historic Properties in Virginia.”
In this conversational talk, Cole will share his recollections of growing up in Lexington - of its residents and its historic buildings as they were in the 1950s and 1960s. He’ll also discuss historic homes, farms, and other properties protected by conservation easements around Virginia; and describe the fundamentals and benefits of donating conservation easements and gifts of land. The program will conclude with a question and answer session, as time permits.
For additional information about either program, contact the Historic Lexington Foundation office at (540) 463-6832.
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