The Gloucester Museum of History is currently featuring a special archaeology exhibit by Danny Fary of Gloucester in recognition of Archaeology Month in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The featured exhibit is "A Look into Prehistoric Gloucester County". Gloucester was home to Native American people for thousands of years prior to the Powhatan tribes being challenged with European arrival. The featured artifacts date from 6,000 years or more back in time to 300 A.D. and were discovered on a location now part of Beaverdam Reservoir and Park. They are part of a collection gathered over years by Mr. Peter Fary (1870-1952) while gardening a section of Pear Field adjacent to Beaver Dam Swamp and part of today's reservoir property. Mr. Fary developed severe palsy early in life and as he aged he was not able to work in the woods and at the mill (W.T. Fary Bros.) One task he fulfilled was a large garden farmed with a mule, plow, and cultivator. Over the years, Mr. Fary unearthed two grindstones, hammer stones for making tools, stone knives and axes, a large quantity of worked stone (the refuse from making tools and projectile points), as well as, unfinished or broken points and numerous finished points. He collected these items and stored them in old plug tobacco boxes. The artifacts give evidence of this location's long term occupation from the early Archaic period into the early Woodlands period. The site sits at the base of a hill and the field sloped to Beaverdam Swamp and a large spring prior to the reservoir's construction. The natural features, a nearby spring and protection from the wind made this a choice site for a village. Along with Native American artifacts, Mr. Fary's collection includes brick fragments, clay pipe stems and bowl pieces, colonial pottery, and a flint for a flintlock musket highlighting how sites preferred by Native Americans were also chosen by Europeans for their home sites. The archaeology exhibit will be on display until November 29th.
Also continued through September is the "The Good Old Days" exhibit which features items from the early 1900's. Items on display include cow leg irons, milk pails, calf and cow muzzles, butter churns and butter presses, as well as clothing, shoes and household items from that time period.
Another popular exhibit at the Museum is the original oil painting of Civil War General W. B. Taliaferro reviewing the last general muster of the Gloucester Militia at Roaring Springs Plantation the 4th Saturday in May 1860. Painted by Robert E. Goodlier (b.1925 – d.1999), the painting has been donated to the Gloucester Museum of History by his family. The artist’s daughter, Elizabeth G. Esrey of Middletown, Delaware and son, Winslow R. Goodlier of Glen Allen, Virginia, agreed that the painting should be returned to Gloucester because of it’s historic significance to the County. Mr. and Mrs. Robert Goodlier lived at Roaring Springs Plantation from 1992 until 2004.
The Museum also continues to display the "Battle of the Hook" Exhibit as well as other numerous permanent exhibits. The permanent exhibits on display include the original manuscript of The Honey-Pod Tree, the Gremer Doll House Exhibit (located on the 2nd floor) and the World Wars I and II Exhibit which will remain in place throughout the year.
Museum Exhibit on the Second Floor
The second floor of the Gloucester Museum of History is also open to the general public. The theme of the eight station exhibit is "Echoes From The Past, Six Periods of Gloucester History," tracing Gloucester's
rich history and varied contributions from 5 million years ago, when the area was covered by a warm tropical sea, to the Civil War, when it gave both a General to the Confederate Army and was home to James D. Gardner, who rose from oysterman to become the only recipient of a Congressional Medal of Honor from the area while serving in the Union Army. Other displays in the new exhibit area include Native Americans, Bacon's Rebellion, archaeological findings from "Paradise" (home of the Lees), archaeological findings from the Fairfield Plantation, and Gloucester's participation in the Revolutionary War, War of 1812 and Civil War.