Inaugural Presentation of the Patrick Robert Sydnor Pre

Inaugural Presentation of the Patrick Robert Sydnor Pre-Civil
War Log Cabin
Mecklenburg County, Virginia
July 27, 2008
Literacy InterActives, Inc. (LIA) sponsored the Inaugural Presentation of the Patrick
Robert Sydnor Log Cabin, circa 18601 Mecklenburg County on Sunday, July 27, 2008,
at the Clarksville Veterans of Foreign Wars lodge, from 2:30 – 4: 00 PM. The Patrick
Robert Sydnor antebellum log cabin is named on the Virginia Landmarks Register and
the National Register of Historic Places. LIA hosted the public luncheon and introduced
its mission and project objectives. Dr. Angelita Reyes was the project director for the
July 27th event. The event was free and opened to the public.
With its focus on community involvement, outreach, and interpretive programming, the
inauguration event highlighted the naming of the historic site in the Mecklenburg
community for its cultural, community and historical significance. One of the immediate
goals of Literacy InterActives, Inc. is to rehabilitate the 19th century Sydnor cabin site as
an interactive economic development project connected to education, heritage tourism,
public history and K-12 schools in southern Virginia.
The pre-Civil War log cabin originally was a part of the vast Prestwould plantation
established by Virginia’s Sir Peyton Skipwith in 1798. Prestwould (like the other great
plantations in Virginia) has two histories. Whereas Prestwould’s history represents
plantation wealth grounded in the early formations of the Early Republic, the other
history of Prestwould witnesses the ebb and flow of the African American experience in
southern Virginia. The antebellum era, however, is not the only significant historical
period associated with African American family life at the cabin. The historical site is
rich with farm life tools, evidence of productive tillage, and prohibition artifacts from the
1920s and 1930s. There is also an historic period trash pit located a distance behind
the cabin.
The mayor of Clarksville, The Honorable Kevin S. Allgood was the keynote speaker. He
introduced the historical significance of the site and its potential in the new vision of civic
planning in Clarksville, VA. Reverend Russell Williams, (Presbyterian USA) and
Reverend Delmar Harris (pastor of St. Matthew Baptist Church), Doris Hestor (retired
principal and Mecklenburg County school board member) were panelists and speakers.
They represented the humanities in religious, educational, and cultural diversity. A well
known local pianist and soloist provided the musical interlude. Rev. Russell Williams,
past president of the Rotary Club introduced the significance of the cabin project as an
1
Since the nomination acceptance of the Patrick Robert Log Cabin site to the National Register
and the Virginia Register of Historic Places, it is documented that the cabin is listed on the 1860
Virginia Slave Schedule of Fulwar Skipwith, Clarksville, Virginia. Eight U. S. Census 1860 Slave
Schedule (22nd Regiment Mecklenburg County), Vol. 5 No. 653 Roll 1394, p. 10/76.
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entry point for building cultural bridges, which represents the goals and objectives of the
Rotary Club. The program concluded with questions and answers from among the
invitees regarding neighborhood development, future interpretive cultural history and
oral history programming, and the cabin restoration project. The cabin is five minutes
from the VFW. The program ended with a caravan to the historic site.
Because of its rich cultural heritage, its
historical integrity, and the potential that it
invites for educational outreach and
economic development, the Sydnor cabin
site, considered as a home place for
numerous African American families, has
the honor and importance of being among
the 2000 places in Virginia named on the
National and State Registers.
Descendants of Vicey Skipwith (ca. 18561936), the first African American to own the
cabin property (in 1888) and Patrick Robert
Sydnor (1854-1950), a former slave and literate tombstone carver, continued to live in
the area. Members of the African American Burwell, Skipwith, and Sydnor families were
also introduced and honored at the event. Another recognized attendee was Robert
Andrew Parker of Raleigh, North Carolina. Parker is a direct descendant of the English
family lineage of Colonel Lewis Burwell, the slaveholder, tobacco and cotton planter,
who established historic plantations throughout Virginia and North Carolina in the 19th
century.
Robert Andrew Parker is the author of The Burwells of Kingsmill & Stoneland: An
Account of an American Family 1633-1900 (1992). In his early seventies, Parker
demonstrated his surprise when he was introduced at being recognized at such an
event. There were also African American Burwell attendees who are connected to the
same white American Burwell family.
Patrick Robert “Parker” Sydnor, the former enslaved African American for whom the
historic site is named, married into the African American Burwell family (Betsy Burwell,
ca. 1872-1920) after Reconstruction. Betsy Burwell’s father, Ransom Burwell, had been
an enslaved African American from The Oaks, one of Lewis Burwell’s Mecklenburg
County plantations near the Roanoke River. Byron Burwell, Ransom’s father, was one
of four original trustees of St. Matthew Baptist church who bought land from Fulwar
Skipwith to establish St. Matthew Baptis church in 1877.
LIA hosted a Sunday dinner-lunch because in the local culture that is the time, after
church, when people are amenable to “breaking bread together” where an atmosphere
of educational dialogues among community leaders and the African American and
Anglo American general public could occur. The venue for the event was at the Veteran
of Foreign Wars Post (VFW) located not too far from the cabin site on Highway 15 N.
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The VFW is a familiar and comfortable meeting place for both blacks and whites in this
area. A total of 154 people attended. The atmosphere was warm and friendly. The
attendees represented an impressive array of economic, ethnic, racial and cultural
diversity.
The attendees included community residents, retirees, farmers, youth, children,
representatives from local county and town (Clarksville, Chase City, and Boydton)
governments, a diversified group of church representatives, local and out of state
educators, a staff person from the Virginia Historical Society; the director and a scholar
from the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, Dr. Robert Vaughn and Dr. Jerome
Handler, the United States Representative Frank R. Wolf (10th District), and a
representative from the office of Senator Virgil Goode. In addition, there were business
members of the Clarksville Lake Country Chamber of Commerce, members of the
Mecklenburg County of Supervisors, and the Lake Country Rotary Club.
Local attendees highlighted four major features of the event: a) an unexpected occasion
to meet up with friends and acquaintances who had not been seen for a long time; b) a
social/cultural event that was uniquely interracial considering the local area; c) a well
presented professional and business occasion for highlighting local African American
history and culture and d) an unusually large number of people had come to a public
cultural event in the Clarksville area. The catered lunch by Brummell Professional
Catering was excellent and well organized with professional servers.