The Chronicles Of Grant County
The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. (The photo was provided through Pixabay courtesy of Radford Wine, August 13, 2015.)
Virginia Street is one of the roadways in the Town of Silver City named after states and commonwealths of the country. In this case, the Commonwealth of Virginia. This jurisdiction itself was named, according to several sources, for Queen Elizabeth I of England.
According to the National Park Service, Sir Humphrey Gilbert had a charter from Queen Elizabeth to explore what is now known as "North America." When Sir Gilbert died, "Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother, decided to carry on the venture, and obtained a similar charter from the queen. Reports from his expedition in 1584 sang the praises of the rich land, and by the middle of the following year England had made its first tentative move to transplant English culture to foreign soil. The new colony was called Virginia, after the Virgin Queen."
Today's Virginia includes several key populations centers. One is located along the Potomac River across from the District of Columbia, while another much larger population center is located in the southern part of the Commonwealth near the North Carolina border. The third area is in the central part of Virginia surrounding its capital. The biggest cities in Virginia, in order of population according to the U S Census Bureau, include Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, Arlington, Richmond (the Commonwealth capital), Newport News, Alexandria, Hampton, Roanoke, and Portsmouth.
The Commonwealth includes a number of national parks that welcome visitors from throughout the nation and beyond. Several of these Federal properties are largely kept in their natural state. "The Shenandoah National Park is a land bursting with cascading waterfalls, spectacular vistas, fields of wildflowers, and quiet wooded hollows," the National Park Service noted in a statement. That statement indicated that this park includes more than "…200,000 acres of protected lands that are haven to deer, songbirds, and black bear."
The U S Fish and Wildlife Service operates the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge. "Chincoteague Refuge includes more than 14,000 acres of beach, dunes, marsh, and maritime forest," according to that Federal agency. "Established in 1943 to provide habitat for migratory birds (with an emphasis on conserving greater snow geese), the refuge today provides habitat for waterfowl, wading birds, shorebirds, and song birds as well as other species of wildlife and plants. The refuge also provides wildlife-dependent recreational opportunities such as fishing, hunting, wildlife photography and observation, interpretation, and environmental education."
Other national parks focus on history that took place on the lands of Virginia. The Colonial National Historical Park includes two sites that had substantial impact on the development of what became the United States of America: Historic Jamestowne and the Yorktown Battlefield. "On May 13, 1607, Jamestown was established as the first permanent English settlement in North America," the National Park Service reported. "Three cultures came together – European, Virginia Indian, and African – to create a new society that would eventually seek independence from Great Britain. On October 19, 1781, American and French troops defeated the British at Yorktown in the last major battle of the American Revolutionary War."
The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is the site where, on April 9, 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia, under the leadership of General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to the United States of America, represented by General Ulysses S. Grant. It took additional Confederate generals to do the same before the American Civil War officially ended.
Grant County, New Mexico, was named after General Grant before he became President Ulysses S. Grant.
The dogwood is the state tree for the Commonwealth of Virginia. This dogwood tree was found at the Staunton National Cemetery. The cemetery is located in the Shenandoah Valley. (The photo was provided courtesy of the Department of Veterans Affairs.)
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© 2021 Richard McDonough