Hallowed memories

By Allison Brophy Champion

Published: May 8, 2008

MONTPELIER STATION —David McCullough, the Pulitzer-prize winning author of the best-selling biography on John Adams — the second president — was in his element last week visiting the plantation of James Madison, the fourth president.

It was a day to bask in the history of these United States, and a celebration of the work of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground, a preservation partnership that formed in 2005 with a focus on the 175-mile corridor from Monticello to Gettysburg.

“I was thinking how privileged we all are to be in Virginia with the sun out, the grass green and the dogwoods in bloom in this merry month of May,” McCullough told the 100-plus crowd of fellow historians and preservationists gathered for JTHG’s Annual Meeting.

McCullough, a Pittsburgh native who lives on Martha’s Vineyard, said he lived in Virginia in the ’60s and ’90s and that he recently spent time in Richmond and Williamsburg on the sets of the recent HBO miniseries based on his best-seller.

He pointed out that President Adams, of Massachusetts, tapped George Washington to head the Continental Army during the American Revolution, had Thomas Jefferson, his presidential opponent, as his vice president, and nominated John Marshall as chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“That cranky Yankee had a good eye for Virginia quality,” said McCullough of the three men who led, side-by-side, with Adams.

McCullough, 74, said he came to know them all by reading the volumes of diaries and letters they left behind.

“We are what we read more than we realize,” he said.

But it was a trip to Jefferson’s Monticello in Charlottesville as a 15-year-old that left the greatest impression, McCullough said.

“It changed my life because I have never encountered history in such a way,” he said. “To stand up on the mountaintop at Monticello and to look out is to experience one of the best views in America.

“The long view is what history is all about.”

But to know history requires reading, McCullough said, and it requires sharing. Unfortunately, the proper transfer of history is not occurring today.

“We are raising children who by and large are historically illiterate,” McCullough said. “Because we are a doing an inferior job of teaching our subsequent generations the history of their country.”

How can someone say they love their country when they don’t know their history? Parents and grandparents need to take more of a part in sharing their love of history with today’s generation, he said.

“We need to talk about the places we have gone that fascinated us or moved us or changed our lives. And we need to take our children and our grandchildren to these places and show them by the look on our faces how much it means.

“Show them what you love.”

In school, likewise, an interest in history is not necessary something that is taught, but caught, McCullough said.

“If the teacher is enthusiastic about it, the students get that.”

History is not just war, he added. History is ideas, McCullough said, quoting Charlotte Mason, a British educator credited for one of the primary methods of home schooling.

“History should be taught to be an exhaustible storehouse of ideas.”

It was several years ago that Cate Magennis Wyatt, Journey Through Hallowed Ground founder and president, had an idea for the creation of a nationally recognized area “Where America Happened.”

Since then, more than 150 organizations, including every Town Council and Board of Supervisors in the four-state region, have got on board with the preservation initiative that is cultural and historical as well as an economic generator.

Farmers, national park officials, downtown advocates and overall history lovers round out the membership of the Journey, which runs right through Orange, Madison and Culpeper.

Last week, U.S. Congress passed legislation to designate the JTHG as a National Heritage Area, a program administered by the National Park Service. If endorsed by President Bush, the Journey would join 37 other such areas across America.

Culpeper Renaissance Director Diane Logan, in attendance at last week’s event at Montpelier, envisioned big opportunities of obtaining the coveted National Heritage designation, namely access to more federal grants for conservation purposes.

“It will also have a huge impact on tourism and our Main Street communities,” she said. “People come here for the history and this corridor has more history than any other in the United States.”

Civil War history, Logan added, is the number one reason people visit the region.

Kathleen Kilpatrick, director of the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, brought more good news to the Montpelier gathering. The General Assembly recently approved $5 million in matching battlefield preservation grants, available to qualifying localities on a 2-1 basis, she said.

“They are disappearing at an amazing rate,” she said. “It’s a narrow window for preservation (of the battlefields) that once it closes, it’s over.”

Magennis Wyatt, beaming at the very real possibility of seeing the JTHG become a National Heritage Area, described last week’s celebration as “a grand celebration.”

“This is the ground of our founding fathers,” she said, introducing McCullough. “They are the real thing.”

The acclaimed author, teacher, and avid reader, near the end of his speech remembered a trip he took, on foot, to the top of Little Round Top at Gettysburg — a rocky hill stained with the blood of battle.

“I don’t believe in ghosts,” McCullough said, describing how he got out of his car and began his climb. “My pace got slower and slower until I stopped and decided I’m not going up there — not tonight, not in the dark.”

It was hallowed ground upon which he walked, he said, perhaps sensing the presence of ghosts after all.

“It is haunted because it has the presence of the people who went before us,” McCullough said. “To walk in their footsteps is to truly be an American.”

Allison Brophy Champion can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 101 or