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Editor’s note: Two weeks ago, we utilized the archives of The News-Gazette to give you an overview of how the Bicentennial was celebrated locally. We continue our look back at the Bicentennial this week with a summary of the observances at Washington and Lee University and Virginia Military Institute.
Fifty years ago, America’s bicentennial brought patriotic projects, performances and other events to Lexington’s colleges.
Even though July 4 fell after the end of the academic year, both Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University honored the country’s 200th anniversary in the years leading up to the anniversary and the months after.
Highlights included a multi-year archaeological dig at W&L and a weekend of festivities at VMI.
W&L’s Bicentennial Council
“An institution which traces its history back to 1749 is bound to witness with particular attention the passing of America’s Bicentennial celebration,” wrote Robert Lutz in a 1975 article for W&L’s student newspaper, the Ring-tum Phi. “Washington and Lee, however, has not waited until this year to examine its origins and heritage.”
According to documents in W&L’s Special Collections & Archives, the university formed its National Bicentennial Council in September 1973.
The council’s planning documents stretch over several pages and list nearly 50 planned undertakings over the next few years. They were broadly divided into ceremonies (on and off campus) and projects.
One major project saw Professor John McDaniel lead an excavation of the ruins of Liberty Hall, a predecessor to the current W&L campus that was abandoned after a fire in 1803.
The dig uncovered the foundation of the Liberty Hall steward’s house and provided enough evidence to roughly map out the entire campus. McDaniel’s team also uncovered an assortment of metal buttons and broken pieces of pottery.
The university also received grants to have paintings of several Revolutionary figures restored. These included Charles Willson Peale’s 1772 portrait of George Washington as a colonel, which was the first-ever portrait to depict Washington.
A group of historic paintings that included the Washington portrait embarked on a two-year trip around the country, according to the Phi. The tour began with a stop at Mount Vernon in fall 1974.
