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“Lynchburg Glass Corporation is an engaging story with
an abrupt, didn’t-see-
it-coming ending. I
forget which expletive
I involuntarily shouted
as I read the last
paragraph.
This issue of Lynch’s Ferry features some great, detailed detective work on three very different topics: the ornamental gardens and antebellum slave cabins at Poplar For- est, rare portraits of local Civil War soldiers attired in makeshift uniforms, and an obscure Lynchburg-based glass company that manufactured bottles, insulators, and Mason jars among other wares. In each case, the stories are tantalizingly incom- plete, often raising as many questions as they answer.
Thomas Jefferson’s landscaping plans for Poplar Forest required the construc- tion of an ornamental plant nursery, a place where young trees and shrubs could
be carefully tended and prepared for transplantation around the estate. It was a challenging process that entailed enriching the hard clay soil with household trash, including broken ceramics. Occasionally, fragments of discarded kitchen and din- nerware ended up tangled in the root balls of nursery plants and later moved along with them, out into the landscape. Archaeologists at Poplar Forest have managed to locate and mend some of these scattered ceramic pieces, enough to determine when the vessels were manufactured and link the debris to the 1812–1813 demolition of Poplar Forest’s original kitchen.
But solving the “cross-site ceramic” puzzle is just a small part of a greater mystery. Archaeologists would like to know more about the lives of the enslaved laborers who carried out Jefferson’s landscaping plan, a task executed in addition to myriad other daily chores. The one slave cabin that has been excavated so far dates to the period after Jefferson, 1828–1861, when the Cobbs and Hutter families owned the estate.
Though the findings may relate exclusively to the post-Jefferson period, the antebellum cabin is providing exciting, concrete evidence of an “informal economy” that allowed slaves to make money by raising crops or creating crafts for sale. Old ledger books kept by local merchants have suggested that “cloth, sewing supplies, personal adornment items, alcohol, and sweeteners were the most common pur- chases of slaves in the antebellum period.” And, sure enough, items such as sewing tools, earrings, beads, and a brooch have been found around the cabin.
Given time (and funding!), there’s no doubt that archaeologists at Poplar Forest will eventually get to the bottom of the million questions that remain. Unfortu- nately, it appears that the same cannot be said about another article in this issue, Central Virginia’s Southern Soldiers. Who is the six-fingered woman on page 25? And can anyone identify the man sitting next to her? In the fall of 2010, Lynch’s Ferry ran this portrait in anticipation of Greg Starbuck’s photo essay, on the off
chance that it might generate a lead. Here’s hoping that the full article will spark a response.
The magazine had better luck concerning the mystery of the Lynchburg Glass Corporation. A little
over a year ago, the publisher of Lynch’s Ferry, Nancy Marion, placed a bid on Ebay,
in an auction for an early twentieth-century brochure about a local company she’d never
heard of before. She won. And, in the process of searching for more information, she dis-
covered a glass collector named Justin Stoudt who had been researching the bright beginning
and tragic demise of the manufacturing facility for many years. Even more amazing, Stoudt had beautiful examples of Lynchburg Glass products. Lynchburg Glass Corporation is an engaging story with an abrupt, didn’t-see-it-coming ending.
I forget which expletive I involuntarily shouted as I read the last paragraph. At least now the story is fi-
nally in print, so the research can be discussed without spoiling the surprise.
T editor
from the
SPRING/SUMMER 2011 3


































































































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