The Station at Shepherdstown THE TOUR BEGINS HERE
VIDEO:
Mr. Waddy & the Shepherdstown train station (created in mid-1990s) TRT: 29:48 https://youtu.be/0PmKRg8KLcga
Mrs. Needy’s Last Ride was Riding the Train’s Cowcatcher. No harm. The son of the undertaker took the hearse from the close-by Reformed Church, then over the tracks with Mrs Needy’s casket. The engine was loud and his windows were rolled up. Then the train hit. The frame of the hearse and the young Hoffman were thrown a hundred feet into the passenger station’s parking area. But the iron chassis lodged on the cowcatcher as the train headed towards the river. Mrs. Needy’s coffin rolled off to one side and, as George Knode told me in the 1980s when he himself was ninety-two – Mrs. Needy was found neatly laid out unblemished on the siding, still holding a rose before her on her chest. The young Hoffman’s injuries were minor.
Shepherd Freshman – 1914 (NOTE Part 1 dated Oct., 1914 is given after Part 2 dated January 1914 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008
TRT: 7:49 Video link: https://youtu.be/HQXIpWDYVP0
“Shepherdstown, September, 1921 – Even the Roma People Had A Car” https://justjefferson.com/gypb.htm
Our Next Gathering Place – German Street/Princess Street Intersection
The History of the Entler Hotel (northwest corner) – https://historicshepherdstown.com/portfolio-item/entler-hotel/
The “Entler’s Resident Ghost” – William Payton Smith: Upstairs there is a room furnished as an old hotel bedroom. It is in this bedroom that the hotel’s resident ghost, William Payton Smith is said to sometimes spend the night. Smith engaged in a duel in the summer of 1809 with a friend and was mortally wounded in the exchange of fire. He was brought to the Entler Hotel and died of his wounds in a few hours. https://historicshepherdstown.com/home-2/museum/
The Great Sleigh Ride in Shepherdstown, WV – 1920s by Jim Surkamp (as told to him in the 1980s. Roaring down German Street the kids in the big toboggan made a terrifying hairpin turn left and north on to Princess Street, plunging out of control, heading towards the gate leading to the bridge across the river. (TRT: 2:47) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adgJlVKc_Ks
The Little House
The Little House
https://archive.org/details/picket1928-1929shepu/page/n119/mode/2up
This is about the best way to learn — learning by doing pushed by the philosopher John Dewey in the 1920s
in 1928 with professor Florence Shaw its mid-wife, the little house was born and continues for more than ninety years to charm thousands, reaching out to millions more as a color photo in the National Geographic Magazine. The little house is SOOOO Shepherdstown
She whipped her nineteen student teachers and twelve fifth and sixth graders into a work team – planning, measuring for a house and barn for livestock starting with a garden — with kid sized hoes.
But Shepherd college president William Henry Stout White jumped in and said
not just drawings of a house but a house
And the grown-ups would give it electricity and even a working fireplace and teeny furniture – pans and pots – Hobbit pots.
The kids cleared the land for the house and barn but carpenter “DC” James, Paul James great-great grandfather, and stonemason Charles E. “Big Mustache” Jones carried out their plans.
The grandson of President white – Hank White told me that Big Mustache Jones would hold, vise-like in his giant knotty hands, a raw stone. He expertly chipped it into final form and placed it perfectly into the facade
Worries grew when a few days passed and Professor Shaw didn’t see Jones, perhaps an issue over hours and money
When Prof. Shaw found him, she said: “Mr. Jones what will it take for you to finish my little house?”
“Well, Miss Shaw,” he said: “two bottles of hooch from Frog Holler wouldn’t hurt.” Professor Shaw went down the towpath along the Potomac to Frog Holler for the moonshine and the little house was completed even with the latest thing – shingles – for its roof.
VIDEO: James Rumsey – “Most Original” – (part 1) by Jim Surkamp TRT: 12:57
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldRcnQqEYH0
Images script Part 1 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/albums/72157718701499288
VIDEO: James Rumsey “The Most Original” – (2) by Jim Surkamp July, 2019 TRT: 56:26
https://youtu.be/X29S2ywMyTc
Images onlyt Part 2 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimsurkamp/albums/72157718704824466
Come the Civil War – Events Swirling around the Entler:
The Full-On Ring Tournament, 1857 in Shepherdstown
After the ring tournament held in front of the Lee’s home (on today’s Route 480 and adjacent to Elmwood Cemetery on its northern border)– contestants, the Queen, her maids and many repaired to the Entler for a ball.
VIDEO: The Ring tournament in 1857 in Shepherdstown that foreshadowed real war. A Chasm Under Our Feet (Night 1) – https://youtu.be/gtUfQDqOknM (Ring tournament begins around 1:31)
Henry Bedinger, our first ambassador to Denmark, negotiated a treaty. His family returned early. His Episcopal pious wife disliked the easy ways of the royal court. The king was the kind of guy who married a so called commoner for his wife. Henry, who returned to Shepherdstown in 1858 – played in Copenhagen nocturnal chess games in the king’s court with – Hans Christian Anderson. https://civilwarscholars.com/uncategorized/thy-will-be-done-chapter-3-henry-bedinger-alec-boteler-the-creative-congressmen-by-jim-surkamp/
Two years later, this young Mary Bedinger’s overhears first whispers of a great war approaching, over dinner with her grandparents in Flushing, New York
A Little Girl Sees The End – 1860 – (TRT: 2:50) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0usLvJAJWM
Mary Bedinger wrote: “It is true that I was then already 10 years old and had passed quite an eventful life for so young a person. But, one day, in the August of that year, as we sat at the dinner table in the north room at Willowbank, I heard my grandfather say that the Union was about to be destroyed. There was to be no American Union in the future. His tone was very gloomy.
My grandmother began to cry.
and my own mother’s gentle face looked flush and distressed; and through my childish heart there shot such a pang of bewildered dismay as I could never describe: No United States? No world? No life? No anything? – as soon might the sun’s light be withdrawn.
I remember how I looked around the familiar room for comfort. The dessert was on the table. Big melons that my grandfather was fond of raising in such perfection and that were certainly much appreciated by us youngsters. But that day, my slice went untasted and, in truth, I have never been able to see a watermelon cut at table without thinking of the extreme pain of that moment. But as children will, I kept my thoughts to myself.”
Andrew T. Leopold – The Avenger
Shepherdstown was rocked during the war by the murders of two civilians by Andrew Leopold of Sharpsburg, who hunted down any man he believed had deserted from the Confederate ranks. (Unlike like Charles Town that was deeply Confederate, Shepherdstown had at least households with 64 Union-voting adults mixed in with townspeople claiming to be Confederate. There were two postmasters, Elias Baker, the Union postmaster, and Mr. Rentch, the Confederate postmaster. Leopold was indeed captured and hanged in Union custody but when steps were taken to bring by canal boat his coffin for burial in the town cemetery (today’s Elmwood cemetery) an angry crowd of Unionists fought the effort as the wagon climbed up the hill on Princess Street.
Andrew Leopold From Bull Run To God Part 1 by Jim Surkamp
VIDEO 1:
Andrew Leopold: From Bull To Run To God Pt. 1 TRT: 11:24
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iks5ANler0
Chapterettes:
- “Little left to do – but die”
- 1859: Boy Leopold’s River of Peace;
- 1860: Leopold is transfixed on the god of war;
- Leopold – the “Reckless Invincible:”
Andrew Leopold: From Bull Run To God Pt. 2 TRT: 13:39
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjeylgSv6iQ
Chapterettes:
- He Murders A Man Swimming for Safety;
- Leopold’s Avenging Hand Strikes At Shepherdstown Deserters;
- Captured Leopold Makes a Deal;
Andrew Leopold: From Bull Run To God Pt. 3 by Jim Surkamp October, 2014
TRT: 11:42
Video link: https://youtu.be/i4VDBfljt9g
About a young man from Sharpsburg and Shepherdstown who war changed into an avenging angel of death but who, at the foot of the gallows, found God. With Steve French, author of “The Rebel Chronicles.”
Chapterettes:
- Leopold’s Trial: “We Don’t Believe You”
- On the Wings of A Prayer: He Flies
- His Body Brought Home Meets Uproar
- Leopold’s Bones Beside Burke’s
Andrew Leopold From Bull Run To God (4) – Conclusion by Jim Surkamp October, 2014
TRT: 3:16
Video link: https://youtu.be/2twPRDHEB0U
Moving up German Street to our next Gathering Place . . .
The Day All The Town Came to a Black Man’s Funeral – Wednesday May 6, 1903 – Shepherdstown,WV
https://civilwarscholars.com/uncategorized/john-wesley-wes-seibert-the-revered-barber-of-shepherdstown/
Our Next Gathering Place: – IN FRONT OF MCMURRAN HALL AT THE BENCHES ON THE SAME LEVEL OF THE MAIN ENTRANCE TO MCMURRAN
Dan Tokar Explains How He Keeps a 180-Year-Old Clock Running TRT: 35:12
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgoW842hXOE&t=1092s
Our Next Gathering Place: FARMER’S MARKET SITE AND KING & NEW STREETS
The Strange Story of John Wesley Culp
Shepherdstown – John Wesley Culp by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 6:15 Video link: https://youtu.be/nOUnUYB8GiU
Strange is Wesley Culp’s Way Home Part 1 TRT: 8:45
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekxZGyOCe64
Strange is Wesley Culp’s Way Home Pt. 2 TRTY: 7:41
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YD8SnhSFpg0
Strange is Wesley Culp’s Way Home Part 3 TRT: 9:49
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ffj1Zw2Tiz8
In Stone Row on New Street, east of the intersection – there unfolded an account combining John Wesley Culp when he was alive and the hauntings of the home at Stone Row of the nearly impoverished Snyder family, that they rented after the war. All previous tenants left hastily after too many “goings-on.”
Shepherdstown’s Ghosts by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) Written by H.L. Snyder, the extremely good editor of the Shepherdsdtown Register, whose ancestors lived in Stone Row on New Street near the Farmer’s Market TRT: 5:55
Video link: https://youtu.be/CB-KNdM4hcQ
Harry Smootz Commits the Most Unspeakable Murder in the Town’s Memory At the New Street/King Street Intersection in 1892.
NEXT we turn right, going north up New Street . . .
IDNO: 013204 – Description: Gate to old Shepherd graveyard, and east end of Episcopal rectory. Strother Athey and dog. https://wvhistoryonview.org/catalog/013204
. . .to the intersection of New Street and Church Street.
Circus in Shepherdstown 1881 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) January 9, 2009 TRT: 7:29 Video link: https://youtu.be/CFviJKLWx0I This circus was most likely at Morgan’s Grove. But before Trinity Episcopal Church was built at its location, that and adjacent property was the customary circus ground up to the mid 1850s.
The True Story of the Elephant, Moved To Loud Grief Upon Seeing Again at Shepherdstown’s Circus Field Where His Mother Sickened and Died Many Years Before.
At the southeast corner of Church and German Street is the home of Conrad Schindler, a coppersmith from whom Actress Mary Tyler Moore descended. She purchased the structure in the mid-1990s (then the Reformed church’s parsonage) and that led to its current role as the George Tyler Moore Center for Civil War Studies.
VIDEO: Shepherdstown Shindlers Pt. 1 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 3:55 Video link: https://youtu.be/rQ1erL20Ulo
VIDEO: Shepherdstown Shindlers Pt. 2 by Jim Surkamp (Originally mid-1990s) December, 2008 TRT: 5:44 Video link: https://youtu.be/q0XKZvPEGb8
The earliest known photo of an African-American resident of the County (far left) at the house on the northwest corner of Church and Germans Streets.
OUR LAST STOP – The Biggest Historic Event On Our Tour – the fate of “Bedford” that Daniel Bedinger had built – takes us on a short walk from West High Street to left onto the King Street portion within Shepherd University – to the Byrd Center and to its auditorium.
