A Guide to Historical Salem

A Guide to Historic Salem -- Volume 3, Number 1 -- Spring 1997

"Walter Biggs Remembered: Artist Was Story Teller" by Richard Persinger
"Digs Reveal Indian Village" By Delores L. Mitchell
"A Village Green?" An Editorial by Lon Savage
"Civil War Speaker Dresses the Part"
Community Calendar of Events--Spring, Summer 1997

Walter Biggs Remembered: Artist Was Story Teller

by Richard Persinger

Richard Persinger, Salem native and graduate of Roanoke College and the University of Virginia Law School, lives in retirement in Dobbs Ferry, New York, with his wife, Mildred Emory, also a former Salem resident. These are his recollections of Salem artist Walter Biggs.

Walter Biggs, 1886 - 1968, had a sufficient reputation as an illustrator and fine arts painter so that his biography has been sufficiently recorded. He was born at Elliston, Virginia, about ten miles west of Salem, Virginia, the two places being joined by U.S. Route 11. I remember traveling through Elliston, which consisted at that time of a very few houses.

He came to New York in 1903 and had a studio there until after the middle 1940's. After that he moved back to Salem where his mother and sister had lived for many years.

While I lived in Salem, until I left permanently in 1939, I didn't really know Walter, although the Biggs house was just around the corner from where I lived. Of course, like most people in town, I recognized him on the street when he came for visits about once or twice a year. He was a striking figure -- tall, very thin, black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache --the epitome of an artist as a popular ideal during that time.

When I moved to New York, I shared living quarters with Randy Chitwood from Roanoke, Virginia, then a much younger and less well known artist, who for some six or seven years had been studying and painting in New York.

Soon after I arrived, we moved into an apartment on West 68th Street. Neither of us could afford a whole apartment. At the time my income as a law clerk, including unpaid overtime, allowed discretionary expenditures of about seventy-five cents or less a day. That included newspapers, going to a movie now and then, getting my pants pressed and everything else.

Through Chitwood I immediately became a dinner regular, as part of the group eating at a Child's restaurant located on Amsterdam Avenue, a short distance from our apartment on 68th Street. Every evening about dinnertime, from three to about seven of the group of eight or nine regulars would assemble for dinner more or less together. Almost every evening there were lots of complaints about the food, but the company was great. There were, besides the newcomer, artists, a couple who had a business or renting photos from their extensive library of pictures, a bachelor who had been an engineer, an editor of the Chicago Tribune and a highly successful author of short stories, and, of course, Walter Biggs.

After two years I moved to an apartment on the East Side, but continued to see Walter from time to time. These contacts were much more frequent after the arrival of my new wife, Mildred Emory, when we were married in 1942. Walter had been a good friend of Mildred's mother and the Emory family for many years.

Besides the conversations during the extensive time I spent in Walter's company, when I think of him my thoughts quickly go to some of the scores, if not hundreds, of stories that he told.

During this period, when something reminded him of another story he would say -- "I've probably told you about -- ". This was usually accompanied by a very much raised eyebrow. He had a talent for raising an eyebrow so high on his forehead that it gave the impression of going up several inches, turning over one or two times and then falling back into place.

In spite of the many stories he told, I do not think he ever repeated a story. My wife wishes I had the same record.

After spending a good deal of time with Walter, I had never known that he had, you might say, been a professional baseball player. Some time before he had moved to New York, he had played for Richmond or one of the other small cities in the eastern part of Virginia. These teams were organized in the Atlantic League.

He told one story of a game to decide the League Series winner for the year, a game that went into numerous overtime innings. Walter's team scored a run and pulled ahead. If they could keep their opponents at bat from scoring another run they would win. With two out, an opposing batter hit a long drive that landed just at the perimeter fence. The nearest fielder ran toward the ball. When he got close, his spirits sank. Just where the ball landed by the fence a fence board was missing. The ball was nowhere in sight. He was desperate. Nearby he saw a potato - rather round and about the size of a baseball. He picked it up, threw it in; it was relayed to the catcher and the runner was out at home plate. Walter's team celebrated winning the series and went home. He never told me the identity of the hero who won that game. I have sometimes wondered whether he was later a well known artist in New York.

Soon after Walter came to New York he had a studio in the Lincoln Arcade, located about where Lincoln Center is now. Walter lived in his studio, where the living arrangements consisted principally of an old steel army cot. He told a story of a painting he was doing, on commission for an illustration, that included a number of human figures. He worked quite a long time on it and, as he neared completion, painted in the skin tones -- hands and faces-- of the figures. Then he went to sleep on his cot in the studio. Next morning, as he prepared to finish the picture, he was much disturbed to find that the hands and faces of all the many figures were completely bare -- no paint, only bare, clean canvas. He was sure he had put in all the skin tones the night before. He painted in the skin tones again and in due course went to bed. Next morning, the same bare spots on the canvas, while the rest of the painting remained untouched. That night, after painting in the skin tones a third time, and after a small dinner staying at all times in sight of the painting, he turned out the lights and sat down on his cot, determined to watch the painting all night. As soon as the light was turned off and the studio was quiet, he watched by the light coming in from the street, many large croton bugs came out of the drain of the sink, rushed to the painting and started eating the fresh paint. Next day, he realized that the paint for the flesh tones had been mixed with glycerin, which those large water beetles evidently considered a great delicacy. A day or two later he delivered the painting which had been elaborately protected in the interval.

My wife and I have been fortunate enough to have a number of Walter's paintings. These were acquired by gift from Walter, purchase from him or because they were given by Walter to Mildred's or my parents.

The first one, given us as a wedding present, was a watercolor which had recently won second prize in the Chicago Watercolor Show. The scene is a small street or alley in Charleston, South Carolina, depicting the homes of some black people. Some are leaning out a front window, sitting on the front stoop, or standing in the street. Others are in the street at a distance. Like much of Walter's work, as the picture becomes more and more familiar, the viewer continues to find more figures and build in more detail as understanding of the scene continues to grow.

While we were living in New York, we suggested that if Walter had time between his other invitations he should have Thanksgiving dinner with us at our apartment. On Thanksgiving, when he arrived at the appointed hour, he pulled from his overcoat pocket a rather crumpled piece of paper, saying that we probably wouldn't want it. It was a watercolor of the old slave market in Charleston, long since demolished, painted from sketch notes which he had made by moonlight some years earlier.

Of course, we have always treasured this painting and it has always hung on our wall.

Walter never dressed like a modern hippie artist. Always, when I saw him on the sidewalks of Salem long ago and when I knew him in New York, he was carefully dressed -- jacket, white shirt and tie -- as if about to make an afternoon call on a Southern lady. I never saw him in a painter's smock or paint-covered work pants. Typically he bought very fine tweed suits and topcoats. He did seem to wear them rather a long time, but if the material might lose a little of its body, the garments still retained the distinctive look of fine clothes. On occasion he might drop a little paint -- sometimes oil paint -- on his suit. His practice was to let it dry and then scrape it off the fabric with a very sharp knife. The good quality fabric seemed to tolerate this treatment quite well.

Walter's habit of rather careful dressing did not carry over to neatness in his studio. It appeared that when he finished painting for the day he just quit. On his palette there might be gobs of paint of many colors, open and broken tubes of paint lying about, a few discarded brushes and other debris of the work day.

In his studio there was a long-unused fireplace in which were sitting a large number of crockery containers in which were stored what appeared to be literally thousands of used brushes, caked with paint. The high ceiling studio had a large balcony across one end which was filled with trunks, boxes and piles of costumes of all kinds. When he needed a costume for a model he could usually search through the inventory stores on the balcony and find what he needed. He might need an elegant outfit for a gentleman of the days of the three musketeers. It would probably look very bedraggled after years of haphazard storage, but under Walter's hand guided by his artistic eye it would come out as very elegant indeed.

Walter solved many of life's problems by ignoring them. Usually this seemed to work out fairly well. After I had seen a number of photographs of the interior of the homes of black people living in the country, some of them showing the kitchen area with the wood fired cook stove, I asked him how he had gotten such good pictures with such limited light. These had been taken around or soon after 1900. It was often difficult to take good time exposures with the camera equipment of that period.

Walter said he had just snapped them with a box camera that someone had given his sister, Lucy.

However long Walter worked on a painting, he was never satisfied that it was finished; that it was the best that it could be. For many years he provided illustrations for stories in the Ladies Home Journal. He was nearly always late for due dates. On one occasion, he painted nine different versions of an illustration for a story scheduled for publication. Finally, after about a year of delay, the frustrated editor called Walter and said he had to have the illustration. Faced with this ultimatum, Walter looked over his nine attempts and selected number two, which he shipped off to be used.

Usually late in finishing his illustrations, Walter had a regular method of making these last minute deliveries. There was no Federal Express or other guaranteed overnight mail. He would wrap a piece of paper around the canvas, take it down to Pennsylvania Railroad Station at 34th Street, give it to a porter on the club car, hand him a dollar and ask him to give it to a messenger from the publisher who would meet the train. Then he would call the publisher in Philadelphia and report that the picture was on the way and should be picked up. This form of special delivery seemed always to be successful.

For a while Walter was involved in an arrangement, which I am sure was unintentional, , that took out of his hands to a large extent the decision as to when a painting was finished. A young woman opened an art gallery on the street floor of West 67th Street where Walter had his studio and living quarters. She very much admired Walter's work and was eager to have as much of it as possible in her gallery.

She visited his studio frequently and watched closely as he worked. When she decided that a painting was finished, she snatched it away, let the paint dry and put it on exhibition in her gallery -- with Walter protesting that it was not finished. This system seemed to work out rather well for a while. I do not know the reason that it was discontinued. Probably Walter did not like anyone organizing him or interfering with the way he did his work.

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Digs Reveal Indian Village

by Delores L. Mitchell

Picture in your mind a large, open field, nestled against the Roanoke River and near the present city of Salem. Many trees once grew there, but they have been cut down to make a large clearing. Around the clearing, homes have been built. Families are cooking outdoors, and the smell of the smoke from the fires mingles with the odor of the food. The day is bright and sunny, and children and animals are running, dancing and playing in the middle of the field. Sounds of dogs barking and children laughing fill the air.

Is this a scene in a modern suburb of Salem in 1997? No, it is a fictional account of what might have been happening in the year 1667, when an Indian village is known to have occupied the land on the banks of the Roanoke River where the Moyer Sports Complex now stands.

In 1970, some amateur archeologists discovered Indian artifacts on the surface of the land where the Moyer Sports Complex was to be built. Twenty-two acres, known as the "Graham-White site," had been donated to Salem to build a ballpark for children. When city officials heard of the Indian find, they allowed part of the land, one fourth of it, to be excavated before building began. According to Tom Klatka, an archeologist with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, "The Graham-White site is one of the most significant Indian sites discovered in western Virginia."

From the digging that resulted, archeologists have been able to piece together a considerable amount of information about the Indians who once lived on the sports complex land.

The Native Americans apparently had wampum -- not exactly money, but "an exchange medium," Klatka said -- made from shells and glass. They had tools - the adze for cutting wood in building houses and dugout canoes, hammer stones used in pounding stakes, axes, cutting tools like knives, scrapers for working with hides, and a variety of others. They had bows and arrows. They had drinking vessels and pots. They smoked pipes; and they dug holes where they stored trash and other materials that tell of their lives.

Excavations at the Graham-White site produced all of these objects: arrowheads made from local flint, some of them serrated for added effectiveness; beads made of glass and shells, clay pipes used for ceremonial purposes,and more than 120 large holes, dug deep into the ground. The diggers also found pieces of pots and drinking vessels, including one which Ferri Lockhart, a teacher at Mason's Cove Elementary school, put together from about 30 fragments she found in an excavation at the sports complex. It is now in the Salem Museum -- the only complete Indian pot found in the Roanoke Valley. The museum's collection includes other artifacts from the Moyer Complex digs.

The Native Americans of that time made their houses, or wigwams, from slender saplings which they drove into the ground in a circular or oval pattern, then bent them toward the center and tied the ends together, forming the framework of round-topped huts which they covered with hides or fiber mats. The covering of the homes was largely waterproof, Klatka said, usually with a hole at the top to allow smoke to rise from fires built inside for warmth and cooking. Although there are no remnants of them, such homes probably were the kind the Indians occupied in what is now Salem.

Indians usually occupied their villages for only 20 to 30 years, Klatka said; then they moved elsewhere in the general area, frequently up or down the stream, to find new land, new sources of firewood and food. There they would erect another village. Another Indian village site has been found and partially excavated upstream from the Graham-White site near the industrial park and Mill Lane in Salem. Artifacts and other evidence indicate strongly that the same people occupied both villages, Klatka said.

Klatka says that Indians liked to set up their camps on flatlands, near water, where they could fish and water their crops of maize and beans. Near the Roanoke River, they found a flat apron of fertile soil awaiting only the clearing to provide home sites and to bear sustaining crops. The streams were running with fish and the forest teeming with wild animals and birds.

There is archeological evidence of Indian activity in the Roanoke Valley from 8000 BC until the mid-18th century. It is also known that in 1671, Thomas Batts and Robert Fallam led an expedition to explore Virginia. They told of a three-day visit in a Native American village called "Totera Town," occupied by the Tutelo Indians. It was described in Fallam's journal as "a very rich swamp between the branch and the main River of Roanoke circled about the mountains.": He also noted that the men were "exceedingly civilly entertained" by the Tutelo tribe.

It is possible, Klatka believes, that this was the village on the land where Moyer Sports Complex now stands. "We know the village [at what is now the Moyer Complex] was occupied when Batts and Fallam came through," he said, and "Totera Town" was believed to have been located near the Roanoke River in the vicinity of what is now Salem. But there is no proof, of course.

Contact with Europeans changed Indian lives. In addition to introducing the native population to European ways, colonists also brought with them diseases, such as small pox and influenza, which killed a significant population of Indians. Information developed in the Carolinas indicates that large numbers of the Native Americans in the eastern mountains died in the decade 1690-1700. Those who survived often joined other tribes. It is believed that many surviving Tutelos eventually migrated northward and ended up on reservations in Canada, with Indians from the Iroquois nation and other tribes. By the early to mid 1700s, few Native American tribes remained in the region.

When officials of the city of Salem learned of the historical value of the Graham-White site, they were very cooperative with the archeologists. They made adjustments to the plans for the Moyer Sports Complex and postponed building for some time to allow the digging to continue. According to Klatka, it was a learning process for both the city and the archeologists.

Today the Moyer Sports Complex stands were Indian children once played and danced. The building of the complex will preserve the land which is important to the archeologists. What better use could be found for this spot than to have the children of the 21st century play ball, climb ladders, swing on swings and cook and picnic outdoors just as their ancestors did some 300 years ago?

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A Village Green?

An Editorial by Lon Savage

The Board of Directors of the Salem Historical Society on February 3 endorsed the proposal to establish a new village "green," to replace the parking lot between Salem Bank & Trust and Olde Salem Stained Glass & Antiques on the south side of Main Street in historic downtown Salem.

Mrs. Stella Reinhard, author of the proposal and a commercial artist by profession, has given much thought and expertise to her idea. Most who have reviewed it and her drawing (at right) seem favorably impressed. Living with her family in the Evans House, perhaps Salem's most famous historic home, Mrs. Reinhard has a good sense of history and its importance to a community and its culture. The park or green unquestionably would do much to enhance the city, creating an attractive focal point in the heart of the downtown district designated just a year ago for inclusion in the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places.

The proposed green would take maximum advantage of the vista from Main Street to the brick Victorian Oakey-Duval House a block away on Calhoun. (The Oakey-Duval House is indicated as No. 20 in the Historic Salem Walking Tour and map on Page 5 of this issue of Historic Salem.) The proposal suggests a brick plaza with wooden benches, a clock anchoring the corner, a large grassed area criss-crossed with paths from corner to corner and small flowering trees interspersed across it, perhaps a Victorian gazebo (as in the drawing) or water fountain in its center, and parking around three sides with either a narrow lane or a wide fire-lane sidewalk path on the fourth side. It would be a place for concerts, perhaps for picnics, for community activities and gatherings, a place for shoppers to rest and talk and enjoy the city.

Probably the greatest obstacle to the village green is concern about its effect on parking. The Historical Society Board's endorsement took no position on that question. Although parking is certainly a key question that must be addressed with the most serious consideration, it is not one within the society's area of primary interest.

But the Board's action was no less sincere or genuine. A village green would do so much to enhance the beauty and interest of Salem's historic Main Street and continue to build on the city's growing reputation as a charming, attractive and historic place to shop, to work, to visit, and to live.

The proposed site is where Salem life has buzzed and flourished almost since its founding. The old Williams Hotel stood there in the first half of the nineteenth century. In the latter half of that century and three-fourths of this one, a succession of hotels occupied the site (most of them in the same building that was renovated again and again): the Duval House, the Crawford, the Salem, the Lucerne, and finally the famous and popular Fort Lewis Hotel that was demolished in 1974. Now it is a parking lot.

Regardless of what is there, it is a key location, a focal point, occupying a significant portion of a block only a few steps from the old courthouse and the entrance to Roanoke College, at the top of the rise of Main Street, in its most historic part. It is worth seriously considering whether the site could be re-established as a place where residents and visitors could gather to enjoy the finer things which Salem offers.

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Civil War Speaker Dresses the Part

When Jeffrey D. Sluss makes a presentation about Jubal Early, he does more than talk. He wears the uniform of a lieutenant general in the Confederate Army just as Early did.

Sluss, 27, a Salem businessman, uses the uniform to make his Civil War speeches more interesting, he says, and the device seems to work. Sluss spoke to the Salem Historical Society recently about Early's 1864 Valley campaign, wearing the full uniform of a lieutenant general in the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia, including hat, coat, pants, boots, belt and saber, and the audience responded well.

His remarks covered the campaign from the spring of 1864 through the end of the war a year later, including Sheridan's burning of the valley and Confederate efforts to pull some of Grant's army away from the fighting around Richmond by setting up a distraction in the Valley and an attack on Washington.

A Christiansburg native, Sluss has a long record of public speaking. As a high school student, he was state president of the Vocational-Industrial Clubs of America, a responsibility that required frequent speeches, including one before an audience in Congress. Now an active JC, he won an award more recently as the champion public speaker in the Roanoke Valley JC's. He speaks often professionally on such subjects as leadership and motivation. He is president of his own firm, Blue Ridge Consulting, Inc., and studied at the University of Tennessee and Virginia Tech.

His interest in history, he said, started in childhood when his family traveled to historic places like Vicksurg, Gettysburg and Virginia battlefields. Over the years, he began to combine his interests in public speaking and history into a hobby of speaking on the Civil War.

On one trip to Gettysburg, he had himself fitted for the uniform by a tailor specializing in Civil War uniforms. "I thought if I did it," he said of his Civil War speaking, "I may as well do it right." The uniform adds much to audience interest, he said, especially when he speaks to school children.

When he travels around the region on business, he finds opportunities to study battles and campaigns on the spot, in places like Fredericksburg, Winchester, and Petersburg. He speaks before historical societies and clubs, scouting groups, history classes and educational groups. He would like to take on additional speaking engagements. He can be reached at his office, 387-0724, during working hours.

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Community Calendar of Events--Spring, Summer 1997

May 10: Ernest "Pig" Robertson Fishing Rodeo, 3-8 yrs, Lake Spring Pond, 375-3057.

May 10: Parenting Fair, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

May 12: Ernest "Pig" Robertson Fishing Rodeo, Handicap Children Day, Lake Spring Pond, 375-3057.

May 14: Ernest "Pig" Robertson Fishing Rodeo, Nursing Home Patient Day, Lake Spring Pond, 375-3057.

May 15-19: NCAA Division II Women's Softball Championship, Moyer Complex, 375-3004.

May 16: Trip by the Salem Historical Society to visit historic sites at Lewisburg, W. Va.

May 16-18: Treasures of the Earth Gem & Mineral Show, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

May 17: Ernest "Pig" Robertson Fishing Rodeo, 9-12 yrs, Lake Spring Pond, 375-3057.

May 18: Roanoke College Preparatory Division Children's Choir concert, Salem High School auditorium, 3 pm. $3/$1 for children 12 and under.

May 22: Roanoke Valley Association of Realtors Affiliates Night, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

May 23: Salem After Five, Salem Farmer's Market. 375-3057.

May 24-28: NCAA Division III Baseball Championship, Salem Memorial Baseball Stadium. 375-3057.

May 31-June 1: Roanoke College Preparatory Division of Dance recitals, 7:30 pm May 31, 2 pm June 1. Olin Theater, $5.

June 6: Salem High School Graduation, Salem Civic Center, 387-2437.

June 14, 16, 18: Opera Roanoke presents Verdi's "La Traviata" in Italian with English supertitles. Olin Theater, $21-30. Call 982-2742 for tickets.

June 16-21: 26th annual Roanoke Valley Horse Show, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

June 21: 19th annual Lewis Gale Foundation "Run for Fun" 5-mile & 2-mile distance runs. 774-4022.

June 25: Chamber night with the Salem Avalanche, 387-0267.

June 27: Salem After Five, Salem Farmer's Market, 375-3057.

June 27-29: Covington International Group, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

June 28-Sept 13: "From Doodads to Deeds: A Hodge Podge of Relics from the Salem Museum Archives," at the Salem Museum.

July 3-13: Salem Fair & Exposition, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

July 19: Farmer's Festival, Salem Farmer's Market, 375-3057.

July 19-20: Salem Gun Show & Sale, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

July 25: Salem After Five, Salem Farmer's Market, 375-3057.

Aug 1-3: Roanoke Kennel Club Dog Shows, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

Aug 6: Summer Music Games of Southwest Virginia, Salem Stadium.

Aug. 15-16: Credit Union Car Sale, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

Aug 30: Interstate Softball Worship Service, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

Sept. 11-12: Fall Classic Golf Tournament, Hanging Rock Golf Course 387-0267.

Sept 13: Olde Salem Days, Main Street, Salem, 772-8871.

Sept 13: FOSL Book Sale, Salem Library, 375-3089.

Sept 13-14: Toy-Train-Doll-Hobby Show, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

Sept 15: "Dramatic Readings from Inga Solonevich's "The Long Trek to Solola," a presentation by Frankie Robbins, Delores Mitchell and Jane Ewing, Salem Historical Society meeting, 7:30 pm, Salem Public Library.

Sept 27-28: Salem Gun Show & Sale, Salem Civic Center, 375-3004.

Sept 28: Art in the Alley, Langhorne Place. Makeup day: October 5.

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