Jedediah Hotchkiss: Roads Scholar

page 18
Crozet gazette
July 2011
by Phil James
[email protected]
Jedediah Hotchkiss: Roads Scholar
The War Between the States, 1861–’65, was a
horrible ordeal. One might ponder who we would
be as a nation today, but for the cost of souls and
infrastructure lost during that dark period of our
past.
Great effort and expense were rendered by each
side to gain even the slightest upper hand to overpower a perceived enemy. Since time began, the
demands of warfare have spurred innovation and
invention. Developments during the American
Civil War led not only to more lethal armaments,
but also to improved medical practices, including
anesthesia.
A less-obvious shortcoming revealed in the
early days of the War was the dearth of accurate,
up-to-date maps. Commanders undertook misguided troop movements because of unsound
information contained in the maps available.
Confederate General Thomas J. “Stonewall”
Jackson is considered among military historians
as a superior tactician. His legendary maneuvers
would not have been possible without accurate
maps. The excellent maps he had at his disposal
came from a seemingly unlikely source—a schoolteacher with an avocation of mapmaking.
Jedediah Hotchkiss (1828–1899) was born in
the Susquehanna Valley of New York State.
Raised on a farm, young Jed was an astute
observer of nature who excelled in school.
Graduating at the age of 16, he joined with some
friends on a walking tour of central Pennsylvania
where he found his first job as a teacher. When
his term ended, a second exploratory tour brought
him farther south into Page County, Virginia,
near Luray.
During his years in Page, he worked as a private tutor, married and started a family. His proficiency at teaching encouraged a group of financial backers to establish an academy and to hire
him as principal. It was during this time that he
self-nurtured an interest in engineering and mapmaking, skills which would come to define his
lifework.
In 1859, he moved to Churchville in Augusta
County, where, in partnership with his brother,
he established another academy. With the coming
of war in spring 1861, he closed the school and
volunteered his services for the Confederate
Army.
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His mapmaking skills were soon revealed and
put to use for none other than General Robert E.
Lee. In March 1862, he joined Stonewall
Jackson’s staff in the Shenandoah Valley, where
he was given the order by Jackson to “make me a
map of the valley”. This “big job,” as Hotchkiss
described it, remained a work in progress for
three years. The scope of the map extended from
Lexington to Harpers Ferry, an area roughly 25
miles wide and 150 miles long. Hotchkiss produced the 8’ by 3’ map on tracing linen in three
portions, glued together.
In addition to geographical features,
Hotchkiss’s detailed maps often included names
of property owners, useful “services” such as
blacksmithing, and notations of features relevant
to troop movements such as fence types, gates,
orchards, meadows and forest plots.
When not assigned to reconnoiter enemy positions or to map prospective areas for battle,
Hotchkiss stayed nearby General Jackson and
shared trusted advice on the most efficient movement of troops, artillery and supply wagons.
On May 2, 1862, Hotchkiss recorded in his
diary: “The General and staff were again engaged
making and repairing roads and helping along
the trains [wagons and artillery]… and so by desperate efforts we got… into the entrance to
Brown’s Gap… we cut new roads through the
woods, made corduroy road, lifted wagons out of
the mud by main strength, etc.”
On Saturday May 3rd, the advance section of
Jackson’s troops arrived at Mechum’s River Depot
and encamped there on the hills and river bottom. The ranks of 16,000+ foot soldiers plus
artillery and wagon trains stretched from
Mechum’s River Station back to Brown’s Cove at
the eastern foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains,
clogging 11 miles of Brown’s Gap Turnpike with
the humanity and accoutrements of war.
Hotchkiss knew the lands of Albemarle
County well, having already mapped them with
the same accuracy and thoroughness as he had
numerous other potential theaters of conflict.
Upon arriving on Albemarle soil, he was finally
able to relax a bit on his journey.
“I saw many of the men of the Stonewall
Brigade bathing in the clear, cold stream at the
foot of the mountain, washing off the mud of
three days,” he observed. “Vegetation east of the
Blue Ridge is starting rapidly. A fine spring day
and we greatly enjoyed our ride across the Blue
Ridge over a good road. We spent the night at
White Hall.”
The troops began departing Mechum’s River
Station “at an early hour” Sunday morning, the
sick and infirm by train, able soldiers and supply
trains on foot and saddleback, led by General
Jedediah Hotchkiss was General Stonewall Jackson’s
mapmaker during the 19th century American Civil War.
The Hotchkiss 1867 map of Albemarle County remains an
accurate representation of many of the routes still in use
today.
Jackson. It took all day and into the evening for
the Army to complete the 16-mile trip to
Staunton. As the troops detrained, the rag-tag
group of locomotives returned east to assist others.
“The Stonewall Brigade marched to Afton,”
Hotchkiss noted in his diary, “and took the cars
which had been sent back for them from
Staunton.”
Captain Jed Hotchkiss, C.S.A., produced a
sizeable quantity of cartographic material during
the War. His eye was quick to read an area’s
topography and his skills were honed by the
always critical need for accuracy. Hotchkiss was
diligent in his work: making notes and sketches
from horseback, sounding fords for safe passage,
measuring accurate distance by recording the
number of rotations of a rag tied to a wagon
wheel, and ascending any available summit to
gain better perspective.
Employed as a topographical engineer for the
United States Army soon after the War’s end, he
continued on page 32
Crozet gazette
July 2011
page 19
A detail of Hotchkiss’s 1867 map of Albemarle County, now in the Library of Congress.
page 32
Crozet gazette
July 2011
Hotchkiss
Crozet Farmers’ Market Gets Stronger
The Crozet farmers’ market, held
from 8 a.m. until noon in the parking lot of Crozet United Methodist
Church, is doing well, reports market manager Al Minutolo.
“We had a good Memorial Day,”
said Minutolo, who sells fresh
flower arrangements at the market.
“We have a good variety of vendors
and we expect more to come in as
vegetables come on, things like
cucumbers and tomatoes.”
New to the market this season is
Sharon Smith of Boonesville, who is
offering three types of goat cheese
she is making at home under strict
sanitary conditions, a crumble type,
yogurt and a cheese called quark
(like the subatomic particle), a mild
spreadable cheese popular in
Europe. One week she brought one
of her 10 Alpine goats with her to
the market. She is currently milking
three of them and looking forward
to a break from the twice-a-day
chore when September gets here.
She brings the cheese she can make
in one week to market in a cooler
and so far has sold out every week.
“It goes for $3 per half cup, or about
¼ ounce. “That’s better than in a
store,” she said. “It’s a reasonable
price.” She is pleased to have so
many repeat customers already. “It’s
been fun,” she said.
“Her cheese is awesome!” volunteered John Watts, a vendor nearby.
Smith’s goats started out as just
pets. She lost several to a bear who
had become predatory and had to
be captured and moved by the forest
service.
A regular at the market these days
is Jerry Reid, 67, who moved to
Crozet two years ago from
Richmond when he retired—he still
works part-time for his old company—and enrolled at U.Va. as an
undergraduate. This year he is joining Chi Phi Alpha fraternity and
participating in all their events.
When he was young, he had a friend
who was in Chi Phi at U.Va and he
would come up for fraternity par-
Start your su mmer
vacation with a
healthy smile!
Sharon Smith and her goat cheese at the Crozet Farmers’ Market.
Introductory Offer!
—continued from page 18
Jerry Reid, U.Va. undergrad and Crozet
market regular.
ties. He met his wife at one. Reid
never bothered about college for
himself back then.
“I get into the student section at
games,” said Reid happily. “The key
thing is, I am accepted on face
value.” He is also in the venerable
Jefferson Debating Society. He’s
taking three courses now and
expects to graduate in 2013. “One
of my advisors said, ‘Mr. Reid will
not allow anything to prevent him
from getting a true undergraduate
experience,” he recalled with a
laugh.
“It’s a dream come true,” he said.
He went to a community college to
earn 53 credits before coming to
U.Va. He is a humanities major
with no more math or science
requirements left to fulfill. His longer-term goal is to teach creative
writing and he means to go for an
MFA once he graduates.
“My other fraternity brothers tell
me I’m a 20-year-old with 47 years
of very useful experience.” He said
he is often asked for fatherly advice
and sometimes when a question is
asked in class, other students will
turn and look at him, expecting
him to have something to say
because of his age.
“I am completely humbled by
this experience,” said Reid. “I know
I’ve inspired three other people to
go back to school. I want to be able
to teach one person to write creatively who didn’t think they could.”
utilized his earlier maps and
sketches in the production of
detailed maps of Virginia counties.
His 1867 map of Albemarle County
provides an historic, yet still-important look at who we were then, and
how close to those earlier but nowfamiliar paths we have remained.
Nearly all of the 1867 place
names continue to be used by local
post offices or have been memorialized on E-911 road signage. The
map plotted many of the homes of
that era along with familiar western
Albemarle names such as Ballard,
Bishop, Brown, Bruce, Dettor,
Harman, Maupin, Perry and
Walker. Numerous churches were
named as were familiar waterways
such as Doyle’s, Mechum’s and
Moorman’s, plus Stockton’s and
Beaver Creek.
Notable by its absence on the
1867 map, the village of Crozet
wouldn’t be established until nine
years later, developing along the
Virginia
Central
(renamed
Chesapeake & Ohio/CSX) Railroad
line.
The practicality of the 19th century roads mapped by Jed Hotchkiss
has been affirmed by 21st century
global
positioning
satellites:
National Park Service administrators in Shenandoah National Park
have reported receiving “emergency” phone calls from frustrated
travelers whose in-car GPS units
have directed them to locked border
gates on remote mountain roads—
just outside the Park.
Closing a useful roadway does
not negate the route’s utility, but it
does add teeth to the adage that
sometimes you just “can’t get there
from here”.
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