Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 39.djvu/112

 100 Southern Historical Society Papers.

SPOTSYLVANIA MARKERS.

Sometime in the summer of 1902, a party of gentlemen spent a day visiting the battlefields of Chancellorsville and the Wilder- ness. One of the party, Mr. Samuel B. Woods, returning to his home in Charlottesville, Va., met in some business relation Mr. Thomas F. Ryan, of New York and Nelson County, Vir- ginia. Telling of his visit to the battlefield, Mr. Wood was requested by Mr. Ryan to arrange for the erection of stone markers at points of great historic interest, Mr. Ryan cordially assuming the expense. At Mr. Woods' suggestion a committee was named which included Gov. A. J. Montague, Major John W. Daniel, Col. Wm. E. Cutshaw, Major E. D. T. Myers, Samuel B. Woods, James P. Smith and others, whose names are not now recalled.

Several meetings of this committee were held and the matter thoroughly discussed. It was proposed that the fields on which markers should be placed should include Manassas, Culpeper and Petersburg and the vicinity of Richmond. There was some correspondence and effort made to secure the counsel and aid of parties in these localities. After some delay it was deter- mined to proceed with the work of preparing such markers and placing them in the county of Spotsylvania. The purpose was not to mark battlefields, or lines of battle, but certain points or localities that would be of lasting historic interest, and the writer of this paper, as somewhat familiar with these localities, was instructed to proceed with the work in Spotsylvania county.

A contract was made with Cartwight & Davis, of the Granite Works, Fredericksburg, Va., for the preparation of ten stones, and setting them in place, and in the summer of 1903 they were completed, hauled out to their places and under my per- sonal direction were erected in place. Each one of these stones is about a ton in weight, and is of clear blue Fredericksburg