Category: National Trust for Historic Preservation

This week, PHW was informed of two upcoming grant opportunities from the National Trust for Historic Preservation. First, do you live in a town of less than 10,000? Your project may be eligible for the Hart Family Fund for Small Towns. Funds range from $2,500 to $15,000 and applications are due May 3.

Second, applications are now open for the June round of the National Trust Preservation Fund Grants. Grants from the National Trust Preservation Funds encourage preservation at the local level by providing seed money for planning and education projects. Grants range up to $5,000 and applications are due June 1. Find the online eligibility guidelines and application here.

We have completed the database entries for all the Winchester Mutual Assurance Policies that are in hard copy at PHW’s office. The database has been added to our Google Drive if you are curious to see our holdings. While we had previously assumed our policies were identical to the Stewart Bell Jr. Archives, that is not the case. We lack many of the earliest policies, but have a number of others extending into the 1860s. We used the information from the Archives database as the starting point and modified certain entries to update potential addresses of properties. The updates came through using the adjacent property owners listed in the policies and cross referencing the footnotes in Russell’s “What I Know About Winchester.” In general, the Archives may have copies of the pages PHW does not own. Information may still not be 100% accurate or complete, and only the Winchester holdings in PHW’s collection were indexed. You can also check out the Library of Virginia for more finding tools related to these records.

Last, as we noticed the apple trees blossoming around town, we felt it was a fortuitous time to share a story on Dr. John S. Lupton, credited as the pioneer of the local orchard industry. He was the owner of a particular plot of land we have been researching in downtown Winchester, which led to a bit of newspaper archive reading. One article in particular stood out for painting a picture of the early struggles of a fledgling apple orchard (other articles specify his apple of choice was the Newtown pippin). The article states:

“In all that has been said about Frederick county’s great apple industry, little note has been taken of the men behind it — those who bore the brunt of the early campaign and who were at times in danger of becoming penniless should their fruit fail of expectation. In this connection it is no exaggeration to call Dr. John S. Lupton the “grand old man” of the apple industry. . . . At times the future seemed black and hope almost blasted, but he persevered, with the splendid result of today, when he can look out upon prolific trees and his wide acres of fruit. . . . It is a known fact that he went hungry and ragged and sacrificed his credit before that orchard came into bearing, and had it been one year later bringing forth its fruit, he would have been a financial wreck. . . . However, when he realized handsomely from his orchard (which is now thirty-four years old) what numbers were ready to profit by his experience: for in the wake of the orchards followed the cooperages, cold storages, heavy shipments of fruit etc., with the employment of labor that all these industries mean, and what business man of Winchester, whether he be liveryman, hotel keeper, merchant, banker or professional man has not felt the benefit to the community of this fruit industry? The apple business brings money to those who were fixtures here, hence the money is spent right at home. So it is perhaps not putting it too strongly to say that no man deserves more credit for the material development of our community than Dr. John S. Lupton.”

Read Father of the Fruit Industry in Shenandoah Herald, November 17, 1905 (republished from Winchester News).

Following up from our ice skating edition, one of our members let us know a small ice skating rink was newly installed at Bryce Resort, Bayse, VA. You can find more information on their website if you would like to enjoy ice skating there this season.

We know many of our members love their furry friends, so the Virginia’s Travel Blog has put together Fun With Fido for dog-friendly travel ideas to scenic and historic places around the state.

What if you could do a preservation project over again? The Carlyle House in Alexandria is getting just this sort of examination during a reception, presentation, and panel discussion on May 21, from 6-9 PM. Space is limited and reservations are required. Reservations are $10 per person, with APT-DC members and Friends of Carlyle House members $5/person with code.

The Library of Virginia shares the basic outline and lessons learned from a primary document workshop in a high school setting in Primary Sources Force Students to Analyze the Past and Past Penmanship. As many in the history fields have cautioned, the lack of penmanship education for today’s students is making these primary resources practically a foreign language and will present new challenges for future educators and aspiring historians.

Open Culture has gathered together How to Draw Like an Architect: An Introduction in Six Videos. Brush up on perspective, line thickness, and more to bring your architectural doodles to the next level. There are many other related links in the Open Culture back catalog on drawing, architecture, and much more to explore, as well.

Last but not least is Historic Preservation in Philadelphia: New Tools for an Old City from the National Trust. Regulatory changes and new incentives were introduced to make it more feasible to reuse historic buildings instead of demolishing them after the city hit a record number of demolitions in 2018. Read more about how reduced parking requirements, accessory dwelling units, zoning relief and demolition review in Neighborhood Conservation Districts are expected to reduce the number of demolitions and burdens to adaptive reuse at the National Trust’s blog.