By the early 1800's, an extensive farming culture had developed along the Fisher River. Gideon Edwards had completed his house by 1799. Slaves were important to plantation life handling the labor associated with the household and cultivation of more . . . — — Map (db m162104) HM
In memory of the Confederate soldiers of Surry County 1861 --- 1865 [ Rear of Monument: ] 1861
1865 “Duty is the sublimest word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do . . . — — Map (db m34117) HM
Hungry for History #8
Unique dessert thought to originate in Surry County in mid 1800s. Similar to cobbler, made with dough and fruit or sweet potato. — — Map (db m206799) HM
(Preface):
On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee . . . — — Map (db m56794) HM
The grassy area in front of you is the easternmost point on the Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail. Near this spot on September 27th, 1780, Patriot militiamen from Surry County under the command of Major Joseph Winston mustered to join . . . — — Map (db m56937) HM
The Kings Mountain campaign is one of the turning points of the American Revolution. The British commander in the Southern Colonies, Lord Charles Cornwallis, anticipated strong Loyalist support in the Carolinas. Major Patrick Ferguson, an . . . — — Map (db m56940) HM
The park design pays tribute to the architecture of the Blue Ridge Hotel, which once stood on the very same corner where the park will be. Robertson recalls living in the Blue Ridge Hotel with Carlos Jones as they both lived and worked on Main . . . — — Map (db m185323) HM
Donna Fargo is a County Music Singer-Songwriter best known for her 1970s self-penned hist "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA" and "Funny Face". She became the first woman in country music history to sell a million records back-to-back. After four . . . — — Map (db m185330) HM
The legendary Easter Brothers grew up here in Mount Airy, NC. their earliest musical influence was inspired by their mother and her "clawhammer" style banjo picking. Brothers Ed and Russell formed the Easter Brothers group in 1953 and were joined by . . . — — Map (db m215816)
Flip Rees, an icon in Mount Airy, was instrumental in the revitalization of the downtown district. He founded F. Reese Company in 1946. A Staple family business is known for exceptional customer service. He was a WWII Vet, serving as a Major in the . . . — — Map (db m185332) HM
Fred Cockerham was born in the Beulah Community of Surry County and was a legendary Banjo player, fiddler player, and singer. He began playing banjo around the age of seven. He was known for his double noting old-time banjo playing technique which . . . — — Map (db m185327) HM
To accomplish its mission of protecting, preserving, and promoting Surry County Music, the Old-Time Music Heritage Hall at the Historic Earle Theatre houses black and white portraits of Surry County's old-time music legends, memorabilia, and a . . . — — Map (db m185321) HM
L.H. Jones was a leader and educator in Surry County for over 45 years. He served as the only principal of J.J. Jones High School during its 30-year existence between 1936 and 1966. The school was named after his father who worked as a teacher and . . . — — Map (db m185333) HM
Ralph Epperson founded WPAQ 740 AM, The first radio station in Surry County in 1948.
The station is best known for the preservation of music native to the Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia, highlighting local old-time musicians. WPAQ is . . . — — Map (db m185324) HM
Andy Griffith was a North Carolina icon, actor, musician, writer, and lifelong advocate of the arts. Griffith was born in Mount Airy, North Carolina on June 1, 1926 to Carl Lee Griffith and Geneva Nunn Griffith. He had a humble small-town upbringing . . . — — Map (db m247799) HM
The Mill Worker represents the thousands of hardworking people who worked In the local mills to support their families. After the City's Incorporation in 1885, the Granite Quarry began production in 1889. The first furniture factory began working in . . . — — Map (db m185331) HM
It was on this wall that men would whittle, trade knives and watches, tell tall tales, and chew tobacco. This popular sitting spot was soon nicknamed "Buzzard's Roost." The number of men gathered here made it difficult for pedestrians to use the . . . — — Map (db m185325) HM
The Whittling Wall pays homage to local icons who have helped shape our history and culture in Mount Airy. Featured on the wall are the Whittler-Representing the history of the wall; Tommy Jarrell-A legendary Fiddle player, Fred Cockerham-A renowned . . . — — Map (db m185326)
March 1, 1901-January 28, 1985
Tommy Jarrell was a legendary old-time fiddler, banjo player, and singer from the Round Peak Region of Surry County, He began playing music at the age of seven. Jarrell became known as "The Master of round Peak . . . — — Map (db m185329) HM
The M47 was essentially an M46 fitted with the turret from the T42 tank prototype. The front hull had a sharper slope, however, and the rotoclone blower place between the drivers on the M46 was deleted. The turret had a long bustle which housed the . . . — — Map (db m54515) HM
Humorist, minister, and editor. Wrote Fisher's River Scenes (1859), a collection of folk tales with local settings. He was born 2 miles N.W. — — Map (db m54708) HM
Look up, out, or down and you are likely to see some of these high flyers soaring around here at Pilot Mountain State Park.
Can you identify any of them?
Red-tailed Hawk
(Buteo jamaicensis) height 18-25 inches, wingspan 4 feet. A . . . — — Map (db m77592) HM
Fire! The very word conjures up images of huge flames rushing through forests destroying everything in their path, animals running to escape the heat and flames. Yet in nature, there’s much more to the story of fire. Fire has played an important . . . — — Map (db m77590) HM
(Preface):
On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee . . . — — Map (db m54626) HM
On March 24, 1865, Union Gen. George Stoneman led 6,000 cavalrymen from Tennessee into southwestern Virginia and western North Carolina to disrupt the Confederate supply line by destroying sections of the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad, . . . — — Map (db m54615) HM
On 23 November 1811 William Carsley sold an acre of land here to trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The first Methodist church built in Surry County was constructed here soon thereafter. During the 19th century it was replaced by a second . . . — — Map (db m74773) HM
Jerusalem Baptist Church was organized as Mt. Joy Baptist Church in 1867 at the nearby home of Mondoza Bailey, community leader and carpenter. Amelia “Mother” Howard assisted in the organization of this and six other churches. Sent by the United . . . — — Map (db m74774) HM
The Quiyoughcohannock Indian village nearby was first visited by English settlers in May, 1607. The first land patent at Claremont was 200 acres granted to George Harrison in 1621. Arthur Allen, who built the house now known as Bacon's Castle, first . . . — — Map (db m35940) HM
Surry County African-American Heritage Society
Claremont School
In November of 1913 a deed was sold to the School Board District Number Four for property on the eastside of Spring Grove Road, Claremont, Virginia. A school was built on . . . — — Map (db m35943) HM
May 5, 1607
The English settlers visited here
the principal village of the
Quioughcohanach Indians
This marker is erected by
The Colonel William Allen Chapter
N.S.D.A.R.
1930 — — Map (db m35941) HM
The Surry Lumber Company, chartered in 1885, was among the largest producers of yellow pine lumber on the East Coast. Here at Mussel Fork Plantation, the company constructed sawmills, box mills, dry kilns, employee housing, and a commissary. The . . . — — Map (db m103871) HM
The Surry Lumber Company began constructing the main line of its narrow-gauge Surry, Sussex
& Southampton Railway in 1886. Eventually extending 28 miles, the line began at Scotland Wharf on the James River, continued to the sawmill complex here at . . . — — Map (db m103872) HM
Nearby to the southeast once stood Cypress Church. It was established by order of the Southwark Parish vestry on 5 April 1743. The rectangular brick building, about 60 by 27 feet in size, was completed by Feb. 1745. After the disestablishment of the . . . — — Map (db m98239) HM
Approximately six miles to the north, near Hog Island Creek, is the site of Lawne’s Creek Church. Authorized in 1629 as a “chapel of ease” for the settlers in the area by the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia, the church was . . . — — Map (db m2755) HM
Beginning about 1689, a village known as Cabin Point stood here. It was a tobacco shipping port in the 18th century. Colonial troops were stationed here during the American Revolution in 1780 and 1781. By 16 Jan. 1781 Maj. Gen. Friedrich Wilhelm von . . . — — Map (db m35939) HM
Ten miles Northeast is Swann’s Point on James River. In 1635 William Swann patented land there. The English Commissioners investigating Bacon’s Rebellion met at Swann’s point in 1677. William Swann’s Tomb, dated 1680 is there. — — Map (db m2690) HM
On 12 Oct. 1892, Dr. John Jefferson Smallwood, born enslaved in 1863 in Rich Square, North Carolina, founded the Temperance Industrial & Collegiate Institute nearby with fewer than ten students. Sprawled over sixty-five acres on the James River in . . . — — Map (db m74776) HM
Located five miles to the north is Wakefield. Benjamin Harrison patented this land about 1637. His descendents became major landowners and were influential in Virginia and United States politics. Governor Benjamin Harrison was a signer of the . . . — — Map (db m2691) HM
Between 2016 and 2018, archaeol ogists of the James River Institute for Archaeology, Inc. (JRIA) conducted archaeological investigations at a nearby property on behalf of Dominion Energy Virginia. One of the archaeological sites (designated . . . — — Map (db m206264) HM
This house, just to the north, was built by Arthur Allen in 1655. In Bacon’s Rebellion, 1676, the house was seized by a party of rebels and fortified. On December 29, 1676, it was captured by sailors from a ship in James River who were engaged in . . . — — Map (db m2698) HM
Prior to unloading at Jamestown, the English sailed the James in search of a suitable location. In his account, George Perch recalls crossing to the southern shore on May 5, 1607 at the invitation of a chief he misidentifies as the "Werowance of . . . — — Map (db m98237) HM
In memory of
Chanco
The Indian who lived with
Richard Pace at Pace’s Paines
in this county and who on the
night before the massacre of
March 22, 1622 informed Pace of
Opechancanough’s plot and thus
saved the Jamestown Colony . . . — — Map (db m36052) HM
This Plantation, four miles to the northeast, was established in 1619 by Captain William Powell of Jamestown. Structures and artifacts on the property reflect plantation life from the early 17th century to the present. Donated to the Commonwealth by . . . — — Map (db m2686) HM
English settlement along Gray’s Creek began by 1609 when Capt. John Smith ordered a defensive fortification built on the tidal creek opposite Jamestown. Though the English did not finish construction the fort (known as Smith’s Fort) and soon . . . — — Map (db m2696) HM
Nearby stands the glebe house of the formerly Anglican Southwark Parish that was built soon after 1724. A glebe was a parcel of land owned by a colonial church and farmed to pay the minister’s expenses. This glebe house was used as a parish rectory . . . — — Map (db m2692) HM
Originally called Tappahannock Creek by the English, Crouch’s Creek flowed through a number of early English settlements. By 1625 George Sandys had holdings in Surry County, known as Treasurer’s Plantation, east of the creek. Sandys was a poet, a . . . — — Map (db m2687) HM
On this point, in James River nine miles Northeast, the settlers kept their hogs in 1608. When abandoning Jamestown in June, 1610. They stopped at the island for a night. The next morning, proceeding down the river, they met a messenger from . . . — — Map (db m2682) HM
Near this site on February 26, 1925, the ferry Captain John Smith began the first automobile ferry service crossing the James River. Captain Albert F. Jester was the inaugurator and owner/operator until it was sold to the Commonwealth of . . . — — Map (db m76778) HM
At “Old Lebanon Church” here, the Christian Church was established under the leadership of James O’Kelly, August, 1794. O’Kelly had withdrawn from the Methodist Church, 1792. — — Map (db m2697) HM
Nearby to the north, Richard Pace and his family received a land patent in Dec. 1620 establishing Pace’s Paines plantation. In response to English expansion into Indian lands, such as occurred at Pace's Paines and elsewhere, Chief Opechancanough . . . — — Map (db m2695) HM
Four miles north is Pleasant Point on James River. William Edwards patented land there in 1657, the house is ancient. Edwards was clerk of the General Court and a member of The House of Burgesses. — — Map (db m2685) HM
Surry County African-American Heritage Society
Poole’s Funeral Home
The Poole’s Funeral Home was established November 1890 by the late M.B. Poole. With his horse drawn hearse, he served the community with great dignity and professional . . . — — Map (db m35992) HM
The Quiyoughcohannocks were one of the first Virginia Indian groups the English encountered in 1607 after landing at Jamerstown. Situated primarily in present-day Surry County, the Quiyoughcohannocks had four villages in the region likely east of . . . — — Map (db m2684) HM
Captain John Smith began Smith’s Fort in 1609, two years after the first permanent English colony in the New World was established at Jamestown. The remains of the fort, a two-foot-high earthwork, constitute the oldest extant structure of English . . . — — Map (db m2688) HM
Southwark Parish was established in 1647. To the northeast stood the second Southwark church built by 1673 and abandoned shortly after the American Revolution. To the east, near Bacon’s Castle, Southwark Parish vestry completed the Lower Southwark . . . — — Map (db m2694) HM
(Center)
“At the going down
of the sun and in
the morning we will
remember them.”
Erected A.D. 1947
(Left)
1917 - 1918
To the members of
the Armed Forces of World War I
from
Surry County . . . — — Map (db m36056) WM
Dedicated
November 18, 1995
to commemorate the 50th anniversary
of the end of World War II
which brought peace to the world
and to
honor the
Men and Women
of Surry County
who dutifully and honorably
served in the
Armed Forces . . . — — Map (db m192303) WM
Indians cultivated fertile lands along the James River for centuries before the colonists arrived in 1607. They grew squash, corn, and beans to supplement their diet of native plants, fish, shellfish, and game. When the soils at a house site became . . . — — Map (db m98214) HM
