Here & Then

We are here at the WPA Memorial Garden at Norfolk Botanical Garden. This monument honors the African American workers, like Mary Ferguson and Edna Joyce, who worked to establish this garden.

The azalea garden concept was conceived by then Norfolk City manager Thomas P. Thompson and City Superintendent of Parks, Frederic Heutte. They believed that the Hampton Roads region had the perfect climate and soil for growing azaleas. The City of Norfolk provided 75 acres of high ground and 75 acres around the Little Creek Reservoir to establish a city garden.

The Azalea Garden project became a reality when Congressman Norman R. Hamilton announced on June 30, 1938 a Works Progress Administration grant of $76, 278 to underwrite this endeavor.

Since 1939 the Norfolk Botanical Garden has evolved into a 155 acre horticultural and educational experience featuring over 30 themed gardens. The original garden, now on the National Register of Historic Places still remains and is the only surviving garden created by African-American WPA workers. And like the entire Garden, it is a living testimony to the African American workers who created the Garden and were honored during the Garden's 70th anniversary when this WPA Memorial was unveiled in 2009.

We are at the US Army Transportation Museum in front a locomotive used to operate the Ft. Eustis Military Railroad. The FEMRR was established during WW I when Camp Eustis was created as a Coast Artillery and Observation Balloon training facility. When the 714 th was deactivated in 1972 that ended the active military role in railroad training. FEMRR is now managed by civilian contractors. Ft. Eustis Military Railroad, with its top speed of 25 mph, was often called to the Main Gate and Back line. Its service, nevertheless, has provided the US Army personnel with key training for transporting men, material and supplies during peace and war since 1918.

We are at Smith's Railway where the Hampton History Museum's log canoe is being restored prior to display in the Hampton Roads Convention Center.  Smith's Railway, which has operated as a boat yard since 1842, is the perfect place to restore this historic vessel

"Even though seafood has always been one of this region's natural resources, it would not be until after the Civil War that it became a commercial enterprise in Hampton. Northerners came South and brought Yankee ingenuity, enterprise, and capital to invest in the seafood industry.

Oysters were always plentiful in the waters surrounding Hampton. This industry really began in 1881 when J.S. Darling founded his oystering farm that eventually became the largest in the world and made the Hampton Bar oyster famous.

One of the most notorious pirates to haunt Virginia waters was William Teach, better known as Blackbeard.  Teach, like many other pirates, was attracted to the lower Chesapeake Bay by the lucrative Virginia-England tobacco trade.  We're here at the sight in Hampton, Virginia, where Blackbeard's head had its final resting place.

Along the banks of the Warwick River on Lucas Creek in 1897, a new settlement was established in the sparsely populated section of Newport News, known as Denbigh. Attracted by ads of cheap farm lands, D.Z. Yoder and Isaac D. Hertzler came to the Virginia peninsula in search of a place to establish a religious community for Mennonites

When Warwick Counties’ Mennonite colony was established in 1897, the colonists immediately sought to establish a church. Religion was of great importance to the Mennonites, as church was the spiritual and social center of their lives.

"One of the early settlers of Newport News Mennonite colony was John Harvey Yoder. He joined the colony at age 21 when his family moved from Ohio to the Virginia Peninsula in 1902.

Yoder first worked in the Shipyard for 15 cents per hour, despite having a teaching certificate. When he married Irene Hertzler in 1906, he began teaching at the colonies’ one room school house. Eventually he would serve 25 years on the Warwick County School Board.

When Virginia left the Union on April, 17th 1861, the control of Hampton Roads- with its ports, shipyards and forts- became an important strategic goal for both North and South.  Fort Monroe became a major Union base while the Confederates sought to build a navy at Gosport Navy Yard.

Welcome to Endview Plantation where Tidewater Virginia’s agrarian past still lingers across the historic landscape.  While now serene, in 1781 and 1862 Endview witnessed the passing of armies as wars were fought to achieve and define the meaning of freedom and equality.