Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1926-09-09
NEW ROADS CARRY TOURISTS
OVER SCENIC AND HISTORIC
GROUNDS
Shenandoah Valley Pike, Midland
Trail and Richmond Washington
Highway are Roads Filled with
Beauty and History.
{ From Baltimore sun

rapid completion OF Nlrglnlas e8-
tensive highway system is focusing
the attention of thousands Of tour
lists on this State, which offers a
combination of historical interest
and scenic attraction unexcelled in
the nation.
Less than 500 miles of touring on
the three main highways Of the State
system will enable the visitor to
make a comprehensive survey. of the
outstanding points.
The Midland Trans-Continental
Trail. running from Newport News
to San Francisco. traverses the cen
ter Of Colonial Virginia, where still
stand a number of the mansions
which graced the great plantations
of an earlier day. Newport News
lies on point jutting into Hamp-
ton Roads, where occurred the first
battle between ironclads-the duel
of the Monitor and the Merrimac-
during the Civil War.
Follows James River.
The Midland Trail follows the
James River westward and energies
from a corridor of pines into a
spreading countryside at Lee Hall.
A bend to the right-coursing its
way through waving fields of Scotch
/ broomsedge will take the tourist to
Yorktown, the scene of the surren-
der of Lord CORVALLIS.
On a high bluff above the York
river is the battlefield, with the
earthwork redoubt behind which the
British and Hessian troops made
their last stand on the soil of the
new United States. At Yorktown
also is the first custom house in
America-built when Yorktown was
a port for the young colony
The Midland Trail continues to
/ Williamsburg, to which the seat of
! Virginia government was moved by
Lord William Berkeley from James
town afte the rebellion Of the fiery
Nathaniel Bacon, Williamsburg was
, the first capital of Virginia, where
tie House Of Burgesses held its ses-
sions for a century of Mason's great
Bill of Rights for TIE TIE colonists was
adopted.
Scene of Seven-Day Battle.
From Williamsburg the Midland
Trail runs TO Richmond, passing
through the scene of the Seven
Days Battle between Generals Lee
and Mcclellan.
Richmond has been conspicuous in
history since Tarleton's raiders in
vaded the city in the Revolutionary
War. 1t was in Richmod that Patrick
Henry made the Liberty of death"
speech: where John Marshall made
his home! where Aaron Burr was
| tried for treason; where Edgar Allen
Poe edited the Messenger, and where
the Capital of the Confederate
States held for four gruelling years
against the battering of the Federal
armies.
Passes Monticello.
Twenty miles south of Richmond
lies Petersburg. Just to the east of
Petersburg is the battlefield of the
Crater, and in the city is the house
where lincoln and Grant met for
the last time. 1t was from Peters
burg that Lee retreated to an in
evitable surrender at Appomattok.
The Midland Trail leads from
Richmond to Gordonsville and to
! Charlottesville, where stand Month
cello, the home of Thomas Jefferson,
and the University of Virginia,
which the great statesman and edal-
Gator designed and founded Pro
ceeding westward the trail crosses
the famed Blue Ridge to Stanton
/ birthplace of Woodrow Wilson, and
then runs into West Virginia by way
of the fashionable Hot Springs and
Cevington.
Two Other Great Routes.
Civil War territory is pierced by
two great highways-the Richmod-
i Washington and the Shenandoah
Valley turnpike. Crossing the Poto-
mac to Alexandria, noted Of Colon
/ ial and Revolutionary days, the
Observation-Disclosures highway is
adjacent to Mount Vernon, the home
of Washington, and to Arlington,
the home of the Lees.
1t was between Fredericksburg
and Richmond, over the old Tele-
graph road, which is part of the pres
ent highway, that the Federal and
Confederate armies struggled fierce
ly in the latter years of the war
The highway passes through
Spottsylvania Courthouse, where at
the Bloody Angle, there were
heavy losses to both sides. The birth
place of Henry Clay lies near the
highway at Hanover Courthouse,
about thirty miles from Richmond
Shenandoah Highway.
The shenandoah Valley pike be-
gins at Winchester, a city captured
nd recaptured seventy-two times
during the Civil War, and the point
to which Sheridan made his memoir
able ride. At New Market the boy
cadets of the Virginia Military Insti-
tute held one of the Federal armies
at bay At Harrisonburg the birth
place of DR.. Walter Reed, another
battle was fought.
The highway goes then to Staun-
ton through beautiful scenery. From
Staunton the highway passes among
the mountains of Roekbridge coun-
ty, where Mccormick invented his
reaper, and then to Lexington,
, where are the graves of Lee and
Jackson.
At Lexington are the Virgini.
Military Institute and Washington
and Lee University, and near bv is
the world-famous Natural Bridge.
; The pike connects the northern