Historical Background for the Landscape of Harvest
The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia is one of eastern America’s most evocative landscapes—celebrated in song, rich in history and natural beauty, noted for its agricultural richness.
The origin of the word “Shenandoah” is disputed, but the most widely accepted meaning of the word is “Beautiful Daughter of the Stars.”
The steep Blue Ridge Mountains on the eastern side of the valley are countered by the Allegheny Mountains on the western side. The elevation of these mountains impeded early exploration and to this day the scale of these ranges has preserved the essentially rural character of the valley.
Centuries of abundant rainfall and fertile soil have bestowed the area with forests, waterfalls, swimming holes, natural bridges, and rock formations. The scenic variety is completed with a fantastic underground system of caves.
Harvesting the wealth of the land has been the major occupation of the area’s inhabitants. The Shenandoah Valley has served as the breadbasket of the eastern section of the state for nearly two hundred years. Pasturelands and rolling fields of crops blanket the hillsides. Cyrus McCormick devised the 1831 McCormick Reaper, the ancestor of the combine harvester, in the Shenandoah Valley’s picturesque setting of Walnut Grove.
Civil War Armies waged two major military campaigns to secure control of the Shenandoah Valley’s riches. General Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign of May-June 1862 secured the area for the Confederacy through a series of decisive tactical victories at conflicts such as the Battle of Cross Keys and the Battle of Port Republic. This hotly contested territory changed hands a mere two years later during General Philip Sheridan’s Valley Campaign of August- October 1864. The Union general waged a campaign of Total War down the South Fork of the river from Harrisonburg to Staunton, Virginia. Sheridan’s men burned crops in the fields, barns, homes, mills, railroads, factories, and schools across the area in an attempt to starve the capital of Richmond and its defending armies. This scorched earth juggernaut presaged the bitter harvest of death and destruction of General William T. Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea of November 1864.
In the years following these many battles, veterans returned to the picturesque region to found new towns such as Grottoes. The village of Grottoes draws its appellation from the adjacent geologically spectacular Grand Caverns, which were discovered in 1806 and opened as America’s first show caves. Visited by cultural luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Grand Caverns were also visited by Confederate and Union troops.
The area to the immediate east of Grottoes was set aside as part of the collective patrimony of the American people when the Shenandoah National Park was created. In 1931, the New Deal found its way to the park and one of the first Civilian Conservation Corps projects was based near Grottoes. The result of this massive confluence of men, saws, shovels, pick axes and bulldozers atop the Blue Ridge range was the creation of the Skyline Drive scenic road. Now known as the Skyline Drive Historic District, this crowning harvest of human toil runs adjacent to a trail known for centuries as Brown’s Gap, the primary path taken by conveyors of agricultural produce and livestock to the market towns of the eastern part of Virginia.
Nestled below Brown’s Gap is a plot of land that bears witness to Harvest…
The Shenandoah Valley in Virginia is one of eastern America’s most evocative landscapes—celebrated in song, rich in history and natural beauty, noted for its agricultural richness.
The origin of the word “Shenandoah” is disputed, but the most widely accepted meaning of the word is “Beautiful Daughter of the Stars.”
The steep Blue Ridge Mountains on the eastern side of the valley are countered by the Allegheny Mountains on the western side. The elevation of these mountains impeded early exploration and to this day the scale of these ranges has preserved the essentially rural character of the valley.
Centuries of abundant rainfall and fertile soil have bestowed the area with forests, waterfalls, swimming holes, natural bridges, and rock formations. The scenic variety is completed with a fantastic underground system of caves.
Harvesting the wealth of the land has been the major occupation of the area’s inhabitants. The Shenandoah Valley has served as the breadbasket of the eastern section of the state for nearly two hundred years. Pasturelands and rolling fields of crops blanket the hillsides. Cyrus McCormick devised the 1831 McCormick Reaper, the ancestor of the combine harvester, in the Shenandoah Valley’s picturesque setting of Walnut Grove.
Civil War Armies waged two major military campaigns to secure control of the Shenandoah Valley’s riches. General Stonewall Jackson’s Valley Campaign of May-June 1862 secured the area for the Confederacy through a series of decisive tactical victories at conflicts such as the Battle of Cross Keys and the Battle of Port Republic. This hotly contested territory changed hands a mere two years later during General Philip Sheridan’s Valley Campaign of August- October 1864. The Union general waged a campaign of Total War down the South Fork of the river from Harrisonburg to Staunton, Virginia. Sheridan’s men burned crops in the fields, barns, homes, mills, railroads, factories, and schools across the area in an attempt to starve the capital of Richmond and its defending armies. This scorched earth juggernaut presaged the bitter harvest of death and destruction of General William T. Sherman’s infamous March to the Sea of November 1864.
In the years following these many battles, veterans returned to the picturesque region to found new towns such as Grottoes. The village of Grottoes draws its appellation from the adjacent geologically spectacular Grand Caverns, which were discovered in 1806 and opened as America’s first show caves. Visited by cultural luminaries such as Thomas Jefferson, Grand Caverns were also visited by Confederate and Union troops.
The area to the immediate east of Grottoes was set aside as part of the collective patrimony of the American people when the Shenandoah National Park was created. In 1931, the New Deal found its way to the park and one of the first Civilian Conservation Corps projects was based near Grottoes. The result of this massive confluence of men, saws, shovels, pick axes and bulldozers atop the Blue Ridge range was the creation of the Skyline Drive scenic road. Now known as the Skyline Drive Historic District, this crowning harvest of human toil runs adjacent to a trail known for centuries as Brown’s Gap, the primary path taken by conveyors of agricultural produce and livestock to the market towns of the eastern part of Virginia.
Nestled below Brown’s Gap is a plot of land that bears witness to Harvest…