CIVIL WAR ROOTS ON DISPLAY
Endview Plantation commemorates its 250th anniversary
NEWPORT NEWS — The graffiti is 157 years old.
It was 1862 and the Endview Plantation in what is now northern Newport News belonged to Humphrey Harwood Curtis, who led a Confederate Army company. His family fled as the Union army drew near, and the Yankees wanted to make sure they were remembered.
“BAND OF VETERANS FROM C.1.M.R.,” it reads, 2-inch tall characters carved deeply into the dark wood that surrounds the fireplace of a second floor bedroom.
They belonged to “Company C, 1st New York, Mounted Rifles,” said Tim Greene, educational coordinator of museums for Newport News.
But the house was older than those soldiers’ grandparents — it survived that war and the two before that. It’s been the home of slave owners and a rental property — and for a while it was the site of planned shopping mall. This year, the house will turn 250 years old — and a group wants to celebrate by making it and other sites like it an essential stop for history buffs.
“People come to the Peninsula for history,” said local historian John Quarstein. Often, he said,
that means visits to Jamestown, Williamsburg and Yorktown.
Quarstein, who was instrumental in the yearslong effort to preserve Endview, now wants to lure visitors further down the Peninsula — to Endview, Fort Monroe, Lee Hall Mansion and The Mariners’ Museum.
Deep roots
Endview was a lived-in home for most of its life, from when it was built in 1769 to when the city took in over in 1985.
Historical records, family heirlooms and stories passed down for generations helped piece together the history of the house.
As English colonists spread across the Peninsula in the early 17th century, they displaced American Indians and claimed land. Thomas Harwood took the land in 1635 before returning to England and eventually serving as Speaker of the House of Burgesses.
The land passed down through the family, and William Harwood built the plantation house in 1769 and began a farm supported by slavery — the plantation owner had 15 to 25 slaves at a time between the Revolution and the Civil War.
By the start of the Civil War, Humphrey Harwood Curtis, a doctor, owned the plantation, and he abandoned his medical practice to form a Confederate company called the Warwick Beauregards.
Nearby, Lee Hall Mansion served as a headquarters for Confederate Maj. Gen. John B. Magruder for part of the Peninsula Campaign, and Endview — named such because the road to the house treated visitors to an “end view” of the structure — was used as a Confederate hospital until forces retreated to Richmond.
Union troops moved into Endview, including at least one New Yorker with a sharp knife and easy access to the second floor.
Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan stopped at Endview to plan an assault as he headed to Richmond, and Union soldiers remained until the end of the war. The federal government left the property to African American families until the Curtis family returned after the war and regained Endview, holding onto it until 1985.
There are no signs the Curtis family ever attempted to cover or remove the etchings of the Company C Mounted Rifles, said Laura Willoughby, the city’s historic sites coordinator.
“I don’t know why they kept it there,” she said. “My guess is they just had plenty else to worry about.”
Peninsula Campaign
By marketing all the sites, museums and various resources together, “the Peninsula could be a top 10 (Civil War) destination,” said Quarstein, who works for The Mariners’ Museum. Along with museums and living history events at Endview and Lee Hall Mansion, there are more than 20 sites dedicated to the Civil War on the Peninsula and a dozen in Newport News, Quarstein said.
To him, the 1862 Peninsula Campaign has the potential for an educational experience akin to the sites that typically first come to mind when thinking about the Civil War — Gettysburg, Antietam, Vicksburg, Richmond, Appomattox.
Quarstein rattles off events in the Peninsula Campaign rapid fire, with interjections of, “Oh my gosh,” still in awe of all there is to take in.
The Union plan: an amphibious operation — the largest of the war — to capture the Confederate capital in Richmond via a 70 mile march up the Peninsula. The Army of the Potomac, led by McClellan, ferried down to Fort Monroe for the campaign, a force of more than 121,000 soldiers.
Meanwhile, the Confederate side of 13,000 literally dug in and built a heavily-armed 12-mile defensive wall that cut across the Peninsula from the York to the James rivers. The ironclad CSS Virginia defended the James River, and big guns at Gloucester Point waited for ships to enter the York River.
The Battle of Hampton Roads in the James pit the Virginia against the USS Monitor and fought to a stalemate. The first ever battle of ironclads would forever change naval warfare. The Monitor turret sits in The Mariners’ Museum, just off the river.
Soldiers clashed at the battles of Big Bethel and Williamsburg and other areas throughout the Peninsula. Ultimately, Union troops broke through the Confederate line, but the effort to take Richmond faltered.
Union Forces held Fort Monroe throughout the war.
“We had to convince everyone the Civil War was important.”
—local historian John Quarstein
Historic Quadrangle
Along with the lack of connection between various sites, Quarstein argues there’s also not been a connection of the Civil War to the larger story of America, particularly the existing colonial and Revolution resources that make the Peninsula a draw to many visitors.
The Civil and Revolutionary wars often are treated independent of one another, making up differing units in the United States history standards of learning and filling different sections at the bookstore.
“If you don’t connect the sites, your story won’t be as compelling,” Quarstein said. He’d like to see a historic quadrangle that incorporates the Civil War as the fourth leg in the story recounting the early steps in America’s march to freedom.
“Jamestown was the foundation of the rule of law and Protestantism in America, seeds of our nation. ... Williamsburg was a headquarters of revolutionary thought. … And Yorktown was where freedom was won — but not a shared freedom,” Quarstein said.
The country had to grow and deal with slavery, and the Civil War was a great test of the foundations established in the Historic Triangle.
Quarstein attributes the survival of Endview and Lee Hall to the fact that the very north of Newport News was overlooked for decades by developers. Visitors will see modernity bordering the site, but not the dense, suburban housing that fills most of Denbigh or the strip malls that line much of the rest of Jefferson Avenue.
There were ideas to develop on the largely untouched properties around the two historic sites, but nothing felt like a good fit or got the support needed to be seen through. Ideas included a golf course, hotel and conference center and a Mitsubishi manufacturing plant that used Lee Hall mansion as a bed and breakfast to host important guests.
An attempt to build a mall was fought off by residents and some behind-the-scenes opposition from the owners of Patrick Henry Mall.
The city’s Economic Development Authority currently is pursuing development of the land surrounding Endview, envisioning high-end homes.
Florence Kingston, the city’s director of development, said that plans are still far off but the goal is for housing to respect and complement the character of the Endview house. She anticipated some retail development to go with the new houses because of the lack of retail resources in that part of the city.
Kingston said the city lacks high-end housing stock and a new neighborhood hopefully would appeal to leaders of large city businesses and industries.
“We expect some nerves from people accustomed to the way things are,” Kingston said, adding that the public would be involved in the process. She noted that there would have to be public hearings because the land would require rezoning.
Major effort
Quarstein spearheaded the effort for the city to take over, protect and convert Endview and Lee Hall in the 1990s. In total, he said, he worked to get recognition for about a dozen Civil War sites.
“We had to convince everyone the Civil War was important,” he said. From there, crews worked to get the properties back into period shape and remove the modern amenities and cosmetic features that were added over the years. There was significant termite damage, sagging floors and a foundation in need of attention. They also used old records, photographs and family stories to locate the kitchen, smokehouse and slave quarters.
The fruits of those labors are visible today. The Georgian-style house doesn’t betray its 250 years — it doesn’t look a day over 93, the age it would’ve been in the Peninsula Campaign. The goal is to depict what Union soldiers would have seen while they were there, Willoughby and Greene said.
The house contains various Harwood and Curtis family heirlooms, along with Civil War-era furniture and other products. An upstairs room is set up as Union soldier quarters, while other spaces depict normal, uppermiddle-class life, outside the war.
In the summer, Endview hosts an educational Civil War experience program for kids, and in the fall, interpreters set up camp, don Confederate and Union uniforms, fire era-appropriate rifles and cannons to depict the clash at Chaffin’s and Peebles’ farms.
Gardens contain plants that may have been used when William Harwood Curtis was practicing medicine. Another guide helps visitors identify plants along the site’s trails that American Indians were believed to be using well before the invasion of Europeans.
Willoughby said within the next year, Endview expects some changes to the approach it takes, relaxing the tour structure to allow guides to be more conversational. She said the museum also will incorporate other sensory elements, particularly sound to present various music from throughout Endview’s 250 years.
The main goal is to make the museum more engaging and interactive, Willoughby said.