Lynchburg, Virginia--A Stroll Through History Quiz

Answer: a ferry across the James River

The ferry opened easy commerce between Lynchburg and villages across the James River, allowing all to continue prospering. John Lynch was only 17 years old when he started the ferry, and at the age of 72, he helped build the first bridge which finally made the old ferry obsolete 55 years later, in 1812.

Answer: Rome was a famous city on seven hills

Rome was famously known as a great city built on seven hills, so any village hoping to grow into something great often used the claim. Richmond, Va. also claimed seven hills, but Lynchburg was following Rome. Lynchburg certainly earned the right, as steep as it is above the James River. Wikipedia even has a page, "List of Cities Claimed to be Built on Seven Hills," with dozens listed, including the two most important ones, Rome and Lynchburg. Lynchburg's hills are named: United States College Hill, Garland Hill, Daniel's Hill, Federal Hill, Diamond Hill, White Rock Hill, and Franklin Hill. Note the clue: roamin'/Roman.

Answer: Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson kept Poplar Forest as a plantation home he could retreat to in his retirement. He began visiting there in 1809 and continued taking "vacations" lasting a few weeks several times a year, until 1823, three years before he died. In 1986, the main home was open for tours and the house continues to be a historic site offering tours, about 12 miles southwest from Lynchburg. I tried to help by naming three other men who wouldn't qualify as slave owners or Virginians.

Answer: a boat

Soldiers from Lynchburg in the War of 1812 were given a send-off as they left in bateaux. Tobacco from the many warehouses in Lynchburg was shipped in bateaux. The boats were popular, because the James River provided easy transportation, though they required some skill and strength, as they were poled and steered with sweeps rather than a rudder.

Some lucky slaves who were both skilled at managing a bateau and trusted, were allowed to manage the boats carrying tobacco to Richmond and back, and they loved the sense of freedom, false though it was, of a few days away from home.

Answer: Lorenzo Dow

Lorenzo Dow didn't like Lynchburg much, probably because it had too few church buildings, especially Methodist, his main persuasion though he followed his own path. Lynchburg's problem was that there were too many religions: the founding Quakers, Episcopalians, Methodists, and others sharing buildings, rather than one religion erecting a big steepled building in the center of town. So it looked like there was no church at all, when one or two might meet in the courthouse and another couple share a building or borrow private homes.

Answer: the founder's brother may have applied hard justice to Tories, maybe not the source, though

Charles Lynch, brother of Lynchburg's founder John, was a magistrate and is sometimes blamed for poor treatment of Tories in the 1780s, but etymologists don't place that very high as a probable origin. The consensus is more toward William Lynch of Pittsylvania, Virginia, who headed a vigilance committee about the same time. Early usage of the word generally meant whipping, tarring and feathering, riding out on a rail, or some similar painful, humiliating, but non-fatal punishment. Extra-legal mob hanging of a criminal, or hanging of a black man, were later meanings.

There were a few older English phrases meaning the same thing but using a different name, for example: "Lydford law: is to hang men first, and indite them afterwards," 1656. Cf. "Sentence first, verdict afterwards" in "Alice in Wonderland".

Answer: True

When Richmond, Va. fell at the end of the Civil War, the state government was removed to the interior of the state and set up in Lynchburg from April 6 to 10, 1865. Gen. Robert E. Lee was retreating with the Confederate forces toward Lynchburg, and about twenty miles before reaching there, at Appomattox Courthouse, he agreed to a ceasefire and surrender.

The complete surrender of the army and the civil government took place over the next few days. President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis, had retreated with the national government more southwesterly, to Danville almost on the North Carolina border, and he fled further into Georgia where he was captured.

Answer: cheered an empty train repeatedly arriving and pretended reinforcements were constantly arriving

There has been discussion about whether the trick is an urban legend. Supposedly soldiers or citizens loudly played drums and bugles also, and the whole thing sounds too good to be true. But several people who were present at the time recalled the ruse in their memoirs, and most important, Gen. Hunter wrote at the time, "During the night the trains on the different railroads were heard running without intermission, while repeated cheers and the beating of drums indicated the arrival of large bodies of troops in the town, yet up to the morning of the 18th I had no positive information as to whether General Lee had detached any considerable force for the relief of Lynchburg." Both sides were low on men and supplies, but in the end, Hunter decided not to take the chance and left Lynchburg and all its imaginary reinforcements alone.

Answer: sterilization

The legality of enforced sterilizations was tested by Buck v. Bell in 1927, and the Supreme Court gave the green light for the procedures. The runaway train of eugenics finally slowed down when Nazis cited Buck v. Bell in their defense at the Nuremberg trials. Appalled, normal people wanted to back off from any association with an idea promoted by Nazis, but it wasn't until the 1970s (!) that sterilizations stopped, and the 1980s that a class action suited resulted in counseling and medical care for the victims.

Answer: A small, cheap wood-frame house, such as an average citizen might have built back then

The modest little building was typical of the kind of home middle-class working families built in Lynchburg and all over Virginia, and because it's so ordinary, not many have remained. The house is a three-bay wooden timber frame, on brick piers with brick chimneys, and with probably a newer tin roof.

It was called Lynch's Brickyard House, not because it had anything to do with bricks or a Lynch itself, but because it was on the site of Christopher Lynch's old brickyard.