Evening star., 1949-07-28
Tuck 10 Review
Parade Today;
Pageant Tonight
Virginia Town Opens
BicentenniuI Fete;
SeIiout Crowd Due
By George Kennedy
Stor Stoff Correspondent

dOCC1l . bo41 at tAlS w eNAAS< AANoS@S
Club, starting at 10:30 pm. (EST.
This afternoon Gov. Tuck is
to review a parade in f1ag-be-
decked Main street with 10 bands,
numerous floats and marching
units of Masons, American Le-
gionnaires, Odd Fellows and Vet
Grams of Foreign Wars-the big
gest parade since the Blue and
Gray alternately used to march
in Culpeper's Main street.
Before the ball the whole town
will turn out to take part as
cast or audience Of pageant OF
Culpeper's history entitled "Un-
der Three Flags"
e00th Birthday.
For Culpeper is celebrating her
200th birthday today.
Families whose residence here
had been unbroken since Colonial
days got out their heirlooms and
loaned them for store window dis
plays, along with copies of old
newspapers and old firearms and
swords.
The story Of Culpeper is to be
told tonight in the pageant, which
also will play tomorrow night.
Culpeper is named for Sir
Thomas Culpeper, Royal Governor
of Virginia in 1880 and OF the
same family as the unfortunate
young man who over century
before had been discovered as the
lover of Henry Wits fifth queen.
The chilling war whoop of In
dians again pierces the hot July
nights as the pageant opens with
a scene at the great fork of the
Rappahannock, played on an
open-air stage, marked off only
by a hedge of cut evergreens in
the playing field behind the high
school. The new county is decided
or in q second scene in the
G ange, the home of Robert
Slaughter. The surveyor arrives,
17-year-old George Washington,
the same man who measured Alex
andria. The first meeting, in July,
1749. Of the Culpeper County
Court. the legislative body made
up Of justices of the peace, is
enacted.
Records Departures.
Those were days of losses as well
as gains by migration. A scene
shows family moving west from
Culpeper in a horse-drawn wagon
with a most reluctant cow pulling
rearward against rope f1itched to
the tailboard. Culpepef did much
to populate Lincoln and Franklin
counties in Kentucky.
And there is a scene on religious
liberty in which the justices of the
peace, enforcing the laws estab-
fishing the Church of England,
send to prison for a year and day
q "dissenter."
Prof. Woodford B. Hackley, Of
Richmond University, a native Of
Culpeper who wrote the play, said
he called the man a "dissenter"
because he didn't want to cause
any hard feelings. But the Incl
dent was an historical one of 1850.
The man was James Ireland, one
of the first Baptists to get beyond
the Potomac. His mission was sue
cessful eventually. The Baptists
are the largest sect in Culpeper
today.
Culpeper was one OF the Vir-
ginia counties that protested the
Stamp Act in 1765. The protest OF
its peace justices has been pre-
served and is printed in the SOU
venir program.
The pageant re-enactS the ITS
mastering In of the Culpeper Min
ute Men, $50 strong, in green hunt
ing shirts, with Liberty or Death"
in large white letters on their
chests, and their marching away
to Williamsburg and the battle Of
Great Bridge near Norfolk behind
a flag with a big rattlesnake on 1t
and the warning, Don't Tread
on Me-"
How, in the period between
wars, the county grew in the arts
of peace is told in the next scenes
-one a domestic quilting party,
another field scene where the
slaves were taught to give up fail
ing the grain on the ground.
All this is prelude to the final
scenes Of Culpeper under the third
flag, which still has the place of
honor on the walls of Culpeper
homes, the Stars and Bars.
Big Scene in 1868.
The big scene is the night of
June 8, 1863. The young officers
of the Confederacy and the pretty
young ladies of Culpeper are dane
ing. It is an historic incident and
parallels the ball in Brussels on
the night before Waterloo so men,
orably described by Thackeray in
Henry Esmond. With the music
still playing, Confederate cour-
Ter enters. covered with dust from
a hard ride. He looks for the man
he wants among the dancers and
then taps one on the shoulder. It
Is j. E. B. Stuart's famous cavalry
scout. Frank Stringfellow, a son
of Culpeper. The courier informs
him that Hooker's cavalry has
crossed the Rappahannock. Maj.
6tringfellow calls his officers and
they leave for the battle of Brandy
Station a few miles east of Cul-
peper.
That battle is a favorite of cav
hlry fans, and many call it the
greatest cavalry conflict In his
tory. There were 10000 horse on
zach side. Many of the young
men at the Culpeper party prob
lbly suffered sabre wounds in
he melee. Hooker's cavalry was
commanded by Maj. Gen. Alfred