page_title: Cross Keys, Virginia
section_title: Culture
hierarchical_section_title: Cross Keys, Virginia / Culture
caption_attribution_description: English: By custom since 2013, singers convene following an all-day singing from the Shenandoah Harmony at the grave of Anaias Davisson to sing his composition "Retirement." Photo by the Clinton Davis, 7 June, 2015.
context_page_description: Cross Keys is an unincorporated community located in Rockingham County, in the U.S. state of Virginia. It is located on State Route 276 south of Harrisonburg.
  On June 8, 1862, it was the site of the Battle of Cross Keys, a Confederate victory in Jackson's Valley Campaign during the American Civil War.
context_section_description: Ananias Davisson, the publisher of the first Southern shape note tunebook, the Kentucky Harmony (1816), is buried in the Cross Keys cemetery. Davisson was from the Shenandoah Valley, but many of the songs were collected during trips to Kentucky and Tennessee. Many of his musical compositions have been republished in the Shenandoah Harmony, and the annual Northern Shenandoah Valley All Day Shenandoah Harmony Singing typically ends with a visit by singers to the Cross Keys cemetery, where they sing Ananias Davisson's "Retirement" at the graveside of the composer.
caption: Singers gather around the grave of Ananias Davisson in Cross Keys, following an all-day shape note singing.
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