SHENANDOAH VALLEY, 2002

By Herb Reagan

Photos by Helen Pym 

Funny thing about genealogy.  Once you become interested, there’s no stopping.  I don’t mean the dates, locations, children, and descendents.  But that’s really only the first step needed to try to understand how your ancestors lived, what type of people they were and why they moved around and married whom they did.

My good friend and traveling buddy, Helen Pym, and I just returned from a trip East to attend two Elderhostel programs.  The first week was in Washington DC, and the second week was at Williamsburg.  First, however, we spent three days with Martha Ware at her home in Arlington.  Martha is the granddaughter of Hal Ware who was my mother’s brother.   Thus, she officially is my second cousin, once removed.  But to me she’s just Martha, a real dynamo in her own right, with two grown daughters (out and on their own) and a very busy husband, Steve, who manages to get home from time to time.   

Martha has been interested in the Ware family roots which are more or less centered in the small town of Berryville, VA.  It’s about 50 miles out of Washington in the Shenandoah Valley.  Martha has explored the area rather thoroughly and knows the history pretty well.  We caught up with each other when she found the web site.   It was great to make a connection with family members that we didn’t even know existed!  Anyway Martha made a few calls and we set out for Berryville.  The closer we got, the prettier the scenery became.  By the time we reached the Shenandoah river, we were into some low hills and beautiful mature trees.  When we left the main roads it felt like we had stepped back a century or two in history. Many of the old estates and farms seemed like they must have appeared a hundred years ago.

It was mid-morning and we had no appointments until after lunch so we visited the Grace Episcopal Church in Berryville.  The church was erected in 1831 as a mission church and became a separate church in 1853. It didn’t take us long to find family burial sites.   Josiah Ware, my great grandfather was buried between his two wives, Frances Glassell on one side and Edmonia Smith, my great grandmother, on the other.  Several small stones were nearby for children lost in infancy, a sad but common occurrence in those days.  Behind these graves were Edmonia’s parents, Edward Jaquelin Smith and Elizabeth Macky; and her Grandparents, Edward Smith and Elizabeth Bush.

It was a different experience for me.   Here were the remains of three generations of my past.  I’m a composite of all six of them and don’t know them at all other than some names in a genealogy tree.   There was an odd feeling of awe about it.   And it did start me thinking about Monte’s genealogy of the family which relates us to Queen Elizabeth of England, George Washington, Robert E. Lee and Alfred the Great, King of the Saxons, and beyond.  Are we really a mixture of genes from all of them as well as all those in between? Hmm, something to think about.

About a block from the church was an old hitching post at the side of the road. A historical sign beside it proclaims that Robert E. Lee tied his horse, Traveler,  here when he attended services at Grace church while on his way to Gettysburg.

We were going to go to the small museum operated by the Historical Society.  Unfortunately it was being moved to a new expanded location.  So we decided it was time for lunch and chose the Battletown Inn right on the main street.  It was a good choice.   The lunch was delicious, the service excellent and the atmosphere of the old inn was warm and inviting.  And the name?  Battletown was the name of the area before 1809 when it was named Berryville for it’s founder, Benjamin Berry.  “Battletown” came from the brawls and fights that often went on at the local tavern. 

It was time for us to drive the three miles or so to the Smithfield Farm.  We turned in the driveway and wound through an attractive orchard and broke into a clearing in front of a handsome Federal Style manor house.  We were warmly welcomed by Ruth Pritchard, a descendent in the Smith family and present owner of the property.  She acquired the property in 1988.  It had been uninhabited since 1957 and was badly in need of rehabilitation.  Over the period of the next ten years, Ruth and her husband Ed spent many months working on their plans to bring the farm back to full operating status and to turn the home itself into a high class Bread and Breakfast Inn.  Finally, by 1998 they had the farm producing an income under the guidance of their son, Forrest and his wife, Nancy.

The B&B began to take hold at that time, and their daughter, Elizabeth, became active in the management of that program.   Elizabeth wanted to be married at home, so to make a nice wedding site for her, they built a gazebo type of structure in the back yard area.  It was such a nice wedding, that they decided to promote the B&B for weddings and have had a number of them performed there.

There’s no end to the versatility of this family.  Nancy also has a pottery studio at the Farm and produces and sells a line of her own designs.  Her style appears to me to reflect the Mediterranean with an Italian flair.

Ruth gave us a tour of the house and helped us a bit to understand what they had to do to prepare the building for this modern world. They added four bathrooms upstairs so that each bedroom had a private bath.   I believe they also added a bathroom downstairs, or at least remodeled one.  A completely remodeled and modernized kitchen came in there along the way.  The electrical system was modernized and brought up to code.   Lots of work had to be done on the structure itself including the roof.  At one point a portion of the roof failed in a heavy rainfall and there was water everywhere..  And of course all the old woodwork had to be stripped and refinished to say nothing of the new paint and wallpapering.  I can only imagine the effort and dedication required, but the result has been very rewarding for them. The property is now recognized as a historically important property with the Virginia Historical Society.

Next, of course, the entire building had to be furnished.  It was done most attractively using period furniture throughout.

Smithfield Farm was built starting in 1822 with a large brick barn, followed by the main house in 1824. Other buildings were added until the entire layout was made up of 7 structures.  The total property consists of 347 acres consisting of pasture, hay and grain fields, and orchard.  Edward Jaquelin Smith, a founding father of Clarke County bought the property in 1815.  The property is owned and operated by the sixth and seventh generation descendents of Mr. Smith. The Ware descendents are related to the Smith family through Josiah Ware’s second wife, Edmonia Smith who was Edward Smith’s daughter.

Ruth was a most gracious hostess to us, in spite in the family’s tragic loss of husband and father, Ed Pritchard from a sudden heart attack only a few days earlier.   I’m sure he is sorely missed.

As we left Smithfield we came upon a rather forlorn and quite run-down building, which obviously had historical interest in the area.  A badly worn sign proclaimed it to be the Wickliffe Church of the Clarke Episcopal Parish.   Since 1919 it has been a chapel of Grace Church, but was built a number of years before Grace Church and is one of the oldest churches in the area.  It was originally built in 1819 and rebuilt in its present form in 1846.  There is an annual homecoming service in August, but there doesn’t appear to be other regular services.  In the back is one lonely burial plot with three or four head stones and lots of weeds.  Somewhat sad.  So far I haven’t found anyone who can tell me where the name, Wickliffe, came from.

Our final stop, before heading back to Arlington was at Springfield Farm, which is only a short way from Smithfield.  This is the farm that Josiah Ware owned from 1827, when he started building on the property, until 1875 when he was forced into bankruptcy from the ravages of the Civil War.  Josiah was not too saddened on this occasion, for he was now in his seventies.  Most of his children were grown and on their own, and the property and house was more than he wanted.  Many of the debts he had incurred were as co-signer for friends who needed support to recover from the War, but who had not been able to meet their own obligations.  He was still quite fit physically and in good health.

The farm was bought by Mr William Branson Clagett  He moved his family into the home and he and his son, James Machir Hopewell Clagett, operated the farm, bringing it back to production in the next few years.

In October 1899, the house caught fire and burned almost to the ground.  It was rebuilt on the same foundation, but considerably smaller than the former house.  The ceilings were lowered and the large columns and  balcony were replaced with a more conservative facade.

In the 1980’s the house was occupied by William and Micheline Clagett, presumably the grandson of the original buyer.   Their daughters, Barbara and Susie, inherited the farm when their parents passed away.   Barbara later bought out Susie’s share of the estate and now owns the property outright.

Barbara is a charming lady who is very much in love with the house as well she should be.  It is truly a lovely home done in the best of taste.  We had the grand tour and a nice conversation with Barbara over a period of an hour or more.  The house was remodeled in the 1950’s and a new remodel on parts of the interior, is planned for next year to bring it up to date. 

The farm is still operated as a farm, except that it is leased to a neighboring farmer who runs cattle and grows soybeans and hay.

Susie Clagett Bailey lives in Berryville and is the director of a civic organization for city improvement.

To say the very least, it was a most rewarding day.  It is so nice to visit such a place especially when, somehow, you feel like you’re a part of it all ln some remote kind of way.

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This site maintained by John Reagan and last updated January 06, 2008