A Guide to Historical Salem

A Guide to Historic Salem -- Volume 3, Number 2 -- Summer 1997

Salem-to-the-Sea Was Early Goal
Salem Museum, Artists Develop 1998 Calendar
Remember when... Fire Destroyed Salem's Castle
Send Your Salem Memories
Langhorne Place Is 70

Salem-to-the-Sea Was Early Goal
Town Was River Port In 1816 Plan
Three Batteaux Arrived at Salem in 1828
Navigation Company Building Was on Union Street

By Dan Crawford and Lon Savage

No one ever said Salem's early boosters thought small. They made plans, raised money, built a warehouse and even brought in several cargo boats to make Salem the westernmost port in a huge river navigation system. Their purpose: to enable Southwest Virginia businessmen and farmers to ship their products in heavy volume by water down the Roanoke River all the way from Salem to the Atlantic Coast.

As planned, the water transportation system reached from North Carolina's Albemarle Sound up the Roanoke River to Salem, extended up the Dan River in central Virginia, and even reached up little Tinker Creek in Roanoke County. At the other end of the system, the project featured an inland water route to Norfolk. They succeeded to the extent that most of the waterway was, indeed, opened to navigation, and a few cargo boats actually made the trip to Salem, one reportedly in 1818 and several others ten years later.

More than $300,000 was raised for the enterprise, some of it here in Salem. The State of Virginia kicked in $80,000 of that amount. Work actually began in building sluices, dams and canals to open the river to "batteaux," shallow-draft cargo boats that were poled, pushed, pulled and paddled up and down the river. In 1829, the Roanoke Navigation Company triumphantly announced that the river had "tolerable good and safe navigation" from Weldon, NC, the edge of tidewater, to Salem, a distance of 244 miles. Several cargo boats arrived, amid cheers, at Salem's landing at the end of Union Street.

It happened at a time of intense national interest in canals -- "canal fever," some called it. Moving commodities by wagons and pack trains on primitive roads did not meet the need. The best way to move tonnage was by water. The War of 1812 left the nation energized by a sense of common purpose and a new spirit of cooperation. The impressive growth and prosperity resulting from the continuing improvements and resulting increased trade on the James River and its tributaries would surely have been of great interest to the region's businessmen, farmers and civic leaders. The Erie and C&O Canals were recognized world-wide as exceptional engineering and commercial successes.

In December, 1815, navigating the Roanoke River was demonstrated when a boat carrying a barrel of flour was piloted from Greenhill, just above Brookneal in Campbell County, down the Roanoke, across the Albemarle Sound, and through the Dismal Swamp Canal to Norfolk, a journey of 340 miles.

The following year, the Roanoke Navigation Company was chartered in Virginia to open up the river in the other direction as well, to the west, to make the river "navigable as a public highway...in dry seasons for boats and vessels drawing two feet water, so far as the same is practicable..."

Salem became the western terminus of the system and as such a center of the activity. Visions of prosperity sparked a minor boom here in the 1815-19 period, and Salem was one of the locations designated for sale of the capital stock. The local stock sale was managed by some of Salem's most prominent founding fathers: men like Elijah McClanahan, James McClanahan, William Lewis, Griffin Lamkin, and William C. Bowyer, who was postmaster in the 1822-33 period as well as a leading promoter of the river navigation project.

Bowyer, in fact, along with William Ross, built a handsome, three-story brick warehouse to manage the business at the southwest corner of Union and Main Streets. The building, which was to serve as the northern headquarters of the navigation company, became a landmark in Salem for more than a century.

In 1818, according to unconfirmed reports, an actual batteau was "pushed, poled and manhandled" from Weldon, NC, upstream to Salem, "where its arrival was greeted by resounding cheers," according to historian Raymond Barnes. "Progress of the craft having been reported by the grapevine," Barnes added, "the higher up the river it traveled the more enthusiastic became residents of Salem." No documentation of such a trip has been found, however, according to Salem historian Woody Middleton.

Whether it happened or not, the story reflects popular excitement about the prospects of navigation of the upper Roanoke in the early 1900s. The business looked so good that another company, the Prestonville Company, was chartered in about 1817 to make lower Tinker Creek navigable. Batteaux were to carry tobacco and wheat down Tinker Creek, from about a mile below where US 460 now crosses it in Roanoke County, to the Roanoke River where other boats, presumably on their way down from Salem, could pick up the cargo and carry it on. Backers of the project even laid out a town called "Prestonville" along the creek. Neither the town nor the Tinker Creek project ever materialized, however.

The navigation company also explored the possibility of linking the Roanoke River by canal westward to the New River and thence to the Kanawha, Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. It also examined the possibility of a canal between the Roanoke and James Rivers via Carvin's Creek and Catawba Creek. Nothing came of these possibilities, either.

But the Salem venture went on. Work on improvements to the river continued in the 11820s. Using black powder, primitive horse- or mule-drawn dredges and a lot of human sweat and blood, workers cleared channels of rock and debris, removed downed trees in the river, and built towing walls to accommodate pulling boats upstream and "wing dams" to channel water and create "sluice navigation." As demonstrated on other Virginia rivers, the principal business in such transportation was in carrying cargo on the treacherous trip down river. Dodging rocks when possible and crashing into others, grinding over shoals and shooting pell mell down the sluices was all in a days work for the boatmen. Much of the work of "improving" the rivers and running them with heavily laden batteaux was done by African-Americans, usually left with few options regarding the difficulty and risk of their appointed task and definitely up to the challenges

What is a batteau? It is, or was, a roughly built, flat-bottomed, narrow barge-like craft with both ends pointed. Long steering sweeps were rigged on both ends so the boat could move sideways, spin around or do whatever maneuvering was needed. They were from 40 to 75 ft. long, about 8 ft. wide, and drew about 18 inches. A common trade scheme involved a joint venture using three batteaux , each with a with crew of at least three and trade goods belonging to several parties. After delivery of the cargo downstream, two of the batteaux were knocked apart and sold as lumber leaving enough manpower to return with the remaining boat lightly loaded with the precious tools, instruments and other manufactured goods so valued upstream in the interior. Today, there are over 20 batteau replicas in the Virginia, one finished last year by a local group and named the "Governor Henry."

Work on the Roanoke River proceeded through the 1820s. Samuel Pannill, Roanoke Navigation Company superintendent, reported that its employees "reached Salem on the 11th of last month, (October, 1828) with three boats, one of them being 62 feet long and 8 feet 2 inches wide, and by driving staples, fastened them to Mr. Charles Johnston's mill-dam, at that place." That would have been near the end of Union Street.

"There is now tolerable good and safe navigation to and from Salem," Pannill continued, "and this important object has been effected to the great benefit, joy and gratification of the people in that region of the country."

Pannill reported "considerable difficulty...where the river passes through the Blue Ridge" but "every difficulty was surmounted; the rough was made smooth, the crooked straight, and the work went on under the general impulse of cheerfulness and anxiety, to reach the long talked of town of Salem."

In 1836, Pannill reported the river again "was ascended to the town of Salem... Profitable work, we flatter ourselves, has been done at several points on this river...so as to make safe navigation from that place except at extreme low water."

In 1984, nearly 150 years later, Dr. W. E. Trout of Richmond surveyed the Roanoke River in the Salem area for signs of bateau navigation. He reported finding, between Apperson Drive where it crosses the river in Salem down to the Roanoke Transportation Museum, several rock ledges of the kind used in sluice navigation. He described one such ledge in Roanoke (at Station 555, a location defined in Corps of Engineers planning documents) as "the clearest example of a bateau sluice, and proof that organized navigation improvements were indeed carried out all the way up to Salem."

Commercial navigation of the upper Roanoke River, however, apparently never became commonplace. Gradually, the difficulty of navigating the river, combined with the far greater impact of the advent of the railroad, spelled doom for the project. Maintenance of the navigation system on the Roanoke was not kept up above Brookneal after 1837. Floods took their tolls. As historian Barnes wrote of one batteau that had climbed the river to Salem, "Residents of Salem witnessed the batteau rot on the flats along the river."

Operating with short-haul cargo in eastern Virginia and North Carolina, the Roanoke Navigation Company managed to stay alive for a while, but its property finally was sold at auction in 1882.

The Bowyer-Ross building at Union and Main later became a general store and still later the residence of Dr. John Hook Griffin and his descendants. It probably served as Salem's post office for a time, too, according to Salem historian Norwood Middleton, because of Bowyer's job as postmaster. The building, which was described in a book on Virginia beauty spots in 1930 as a rare "gable ender," was torn down that same year. A car-wash now occupies the site.

The old landing site near the end of Union Street, described above as at "Charles Johnston's mill-dam," would have been some 200 feet upstream from today's Eddy Avenue bridge, according to Middleton. The actual site of Johnston's mill-dam was obliterated by a rechannelization of the river in 1907.

We have no evidence of significant commercial traffic on the upper Roanoke, but the recorded improvements, including an impressive example of a batteau sluice between Salem and Roanoke make a convincing case for the value of further research and surveys of the river. Most of what we know of the commercial use of the region's rivers is the result of work done in the past 20 years, and there is probably much awaiting discovery that will shed light on the vision and grit of our forefathers. The degree of success achieved is not as important as the bigger story of their efforts.

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Salem Museum, Artists Develop 1998 Calendar

Fifteen local women watercolorists and the Salem Museum have developed a calendar featuring full-color reproductions of Salem scenes. It will be available this September at the Museum, and an exhibition and silent auction of the original watercolors will be on display at the Museum September 27- December 13.

This fall, the Salem Museum will be splashed with every color of the season.

No, there aren't any plans for a massive tie-dye party.... Nor do we expect a paintball war to break out among the Salem Historical Society volunteers.

Instead, the Museum's walls will be colored with original paintings from "Women for All Seasons," a calendar developed by the Salem Museum in partnership with fifteen local women watercolorists. The calendar, featuring full-color reproductions of Salem scenes on high-quality paper, will be available this September at the Salem Museum. In conjunction, an exhibition and silent auction of the original watercolors will be on display at the Museum from September 27 to December 13.

"It all started on a rainy day in Bermuda," says Mary Hill, Director of the Salem Museum. Jennifer Joiner, a member of the Board of Directors and volunteer of the Salem Historical Society, was forced to spend some of her island vacation shopping when the weather turned stormy. She came back home with a unique calendar made by a Bermudan artist--and the idea of creating something similar for the Salem community.

The 1998 Salem calendar turned out to be quite a community project. Artists Judy Bates, Susan Egbert, Mimi Givens, Betsy Harvey, Mary Lou Hill, Jennifer Joiner, Martha Brown Mayo, Chrystelo Meador, Pam Martin Ogden, Cathy Powell, Stella Reinhard, Harriet Martin Stokes, Kitty Martin Thomas, and Beverly White all created original watercolors of Salem scenes for a designated month. Sara Ahalt and Frankie Robbins developed and edited the calendar text, and Jennifer Joiner and Frankie Robbins illustrated the calendar pad.

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Remember when...
Fire Destroyed Salem's Castle

By Delores L. Mitchell

The children of Salem used to call it "The Castle." Its official name was "Longwood," the home built by wealthy West Virginia coal operator Thomas Henry Cooper in 1904. It stood on a hill on the corner of East Main Street and Craig Avenue in Salem, and was a landmark attraction to everyone who passed by.

With its towering roof of orange Italian tile, punctuated by towers and turrets, its bay windows, porches and stained glass windows, and its woodwork and fireplaces carved by European artisans, it was every inch a castle. Homes like Longwood provided striking evidence of the industry, individuality and diversity of the people who first came to Salem and the Roanoke Valley to build a community.

What a loss to the people of Salem when tragedy and disaster struck at mid afternoon on Tuesday, November 19th, 1968! Fire broke out in a work area when the home was being renovated. Churned by high winds into an inferno, the fire gutted the 64-year-old Victorian structure within an hour and a half. City Council ordered it torn down two months later.

Thomas Henry Cooper, builder and owner of Longwood, had attended Roanoke College as a young man, and was impressed with the Roanoke Valley. After inheriting his father's coal business, he decided to build his home in Salem. The house reportedly cost $100,.000 to build. Cooper was also president of the Colonial American bank in Roanoke and of the Cooper Silica Glass Company.

About the time the home was completed, Cooper bought a pair of bay horses, which the Roanoke Times said were "attracting considerable attention." To match his fine horses, he bought a carriage that had won special prizes the year before at the St. Louis Exposition. Sadly, Cooper died just six years after moving into the house.

In 1942, the town of Salem bought Longwood to satisfy a long-felt need for a Community Center. It became available to satisfy taxes and debts of the heirs of Thomas Cooper. At auction, the town paid $20,100 for the 18-room mansion that had acquired a popular mystique of grandeur over the years.

During the first year, 3,746 meals were served in the new community center. A total of 126 club meetings and 35 miscellaneous meetings were held there. Boy Scout troops, Kiwanis Clubs, Lions, the American Legion, the Legion Auxiliary, the Women's Club, the Junior Women's Club, the Salem Music Club and the Junior Music Club used the building. The carriage house became the home of the Salem Community Players in July, 1949.

After the opening of the Salem Civic Center in 1967, the Longwood mansion stood virtually idle. The second and third floors were being renovated for the private use of a men's social group called "The Town Club" when it was destroyed by fire.

Today, the 11-acre tract known as Longwood is a park for children. Hundreds of children play where Thomas Cooper's bay horses once pranced and galloped. The castle on the hill is but a memory.

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Send Your Salem Memories

Do you have a favorite memory of Salem? Of life in Salem when you were a child? Ten years ago? Fifty years ago? Whenever?

We'd love to see it, or hear about it, at "Historic Salem." As a new feature in this thrice-yearly publication of the Salem Historical Society, we want to begin publishing more stories suggested, or written, by readers about their memories of Salem in bygone years. Although we can't publish everything that's submitted, we would like to publish a number of them over time.

We'd be interested in your memories of Salem people and events of years ago that you think would interest others: of your experiences in Salem's schools, stores, homes, churches, businesses, public buildings, playgrounds, amusement centers. Of Salem during the Fifties, of Salem during World War II, of Salem before the war. Or of Salem in the Sixties, Seventies, Eighties, Whenever.

We'd like to be able to use photographs, drawings, paintings or other pictures to illustrate your story. But if you cannot provide them, we will try to find illustrations for your article from our own sources. We'd also like to receive your suggestions about Salem history that you'd like to see treated in the publication.

"Historic Salem" is a chartitable activity of those who write, edit and publish it. Advertisers generously help underwrite some of the cost. We urge readers to patronize the advertisers. We'd be especially pleased if, in addition, you would contribute your memories to the publication.

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Langhorne Place Is 70

Wiley Court Was Built for Younger Families

There is a new sign in front of Langhorne Place, but that's about the only recent change in the community of some 75 homes behind the Methodist Church on Main Street. The quiet dignity of Langhorne Place, now some seventy years of age, goes on and on.

The new sign tells us that the community was established in 1928. It bears the Langhorne coat of arms, showing a distant kinship with the famous Virginia family that included Lady Astor and the original Gibson girl. But Langhorne Place is named for a family that has been an important part of Salem for a more than a century.

Langhorne Place is named for James Callaway Langhorne. Cloverdale native, VMI graduate, Civil War veteran, he came to Salem in 1896 with his wife, the former Annie Taylor of Orange County, and their 13-year-old daughter, also named Annie. They were returning to their native Virginia from Colorado where they'd gone early in their marriage and where he had done well financially. They bought land -- the present site of Langhorne Place -- and built a home on Main Street that same year. That home was the center of the family's life for the next fifty years.

Young Annie Langhorne, their daughter, grew up there. She married Frank Cameron Wiley of Salem, and they became prominent Salem citizens: friendly, outgoing, civic minded. They too lived in the homeplace on Main Street, where their four children also grew up. The home had become one of Salem's show places. "We had a stable, a silo, chickens, cows, horses," says Anne Taylor Wiley Nimmo Oakey, who still lives in Langhorne Place. They also had a swimming pool and tennis court.

Her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wiley, developed Langhorne Place on the family property behind the home. It was they who made the decisions that give Langhorne Place its current charm. From the names of the streets to the private swimming pool to the uniqueness of Wiley Court, the whole place reflects the family and its values. They laid it out, planted the original trees on land that was largely open pasture. They put all electrical work underground at the beginning, and it remains there today. While the first houses were still under construction, they built a swimming pool for Langhorne Place, and it remains an integral part of the community today.

The first streets were Lewis Avenue, named for Mrs. Wiley's brother; James Street, named for her father; Cameron Street for her husband (and their son); Taylor Avenue for her mother's (Mrs. Langhorne's) family; and Blair, for Mrs. Langhorne's brother. Somehow, one street was named Locust; no one is quite sure why.

Wiley Court, of course, was named for the two of them. Glenmary Apartments -- also a part of the community -- was named for Mrs. Langhorne's homeplace in Orange County.

The Wileys built the first house on speculation on the north side of Lewis Avenue at its intersection with Cameron -- a two-story white house that stands today as 106 Lewis Avenue. Judge Thurston Keister bought it. Today, it is the home of Gerald M. Pace. The second house followed right next door, built by William Wolfenden; it is now owned by Benjamin Anderson at 112 Lewis Avenue. Roy Brown, clerk of the circuit court, and Charles R. Brown, no relation, dean of Roanoke College, built homes across from each other at corner of Lewis and James. Julius Prufer, a professor at Roanoke College, built a home at 153 Lewis, now owned by Dr. Howard Butts. Dr.Chester Phinney, professor at Roanoke College, built an early home on Taylor. R. S. Fry built his home at the corner of Taylor and James; it is now owned by Allen Cross at 154 Taylor Avenue.

And so they came, home after home after home. "I remember a lot of construction," says Anne Taylor Wiley, who was a teen-ager at the time.

Wiley Court -- eight little houses considered one of the real charms of Langhorne Place -- came in 1936. It was built on unused land reserved for an athletic field, to meet a need for homes for young families. Mrs. Wiley was responsible for the design and layout -- "eight little Cape Cods" arranged on a curve like a fan. The eight were identical: staircase just inside the front door, living room on one side, dining room on other, kitchen and a powder room to the rear. Upstairs were two bedrooms, bath and a small room "for baby." All had back yards and side porches. The porches were on the left side for the homes on the left side of the fan, on the right for the other side. All were rented, and Wiley maintained the property. The central two homes, numbered 4 and 5, had the largest back yards and became slightly more desirable.

Glenmary Apartments also was added in the Thirties. It, too, was maintained by the Wileys with the same ambience and care that marked the rest of Langhorne Place.

Things changed rapidly after World War II. Wiley died in 1947, his widow two years later. The old family homeplace was sold to the First United Methodist Church in 1950, and it was torn down in 1969 to make way for the modern church that is there today. Glenmary Apartments was sold outside the family. The Wiley heirs gave the swimming pool to the home-owners who operate it with a private corporation. Taylor Avenue was extended a block beyond James, and new homes were built on what had been farm land, right next to the golf course. (The Wileys, incidentally, had been instrumental in building the golf course, too, next to Langhorne Place.)

Beginning in 1947, the "eight little Cape Cods" of Wiley Court were sold individually. Young families bought them, and the court became even closer knit. Mothers had the same rules for the children: "Don't go to Main Street!" "Don't go to the pool alone." Most families added rooms, and the homes are no longer identical. The new homeowners began caring about things like property lines, hedges and landscaping. Among the young families of Wiley Court was Anne Taylor Wiley Nimmo and her husband, Jim Nimmo, affectionately known as "Nimmo;" and their daughter, Anne Langhorne. They lived there until 1958, when they moved into the home she now occupies at 249 Taylor Avenue.

Langhorne Place is is now all but filled. There are no plans to expand it. Only one lot is vacant, and young people use it for football and baseball. Houses generally sell quickly. But the charm of Langhorne Place goes on and on.

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