New London Museum

Our annual event highlighting New London History. This year includes open house and tours at Mead’s Tavern and the historic African-American church, archaeological work at Mead’s Tavern, live music, research room, craft vendors and more! Pork BBQ sandwiches, hotdogs, drinks and snacks available. Hours 10AM to 4PM.  Free admission.  Donations appreciated.

Our friends at Jefferson’s Poplar Forest still have room on a fantastic field trip to Jefferson’s boyhood home of Tuckahoe.  Make your plans soon as space is limited!

The official Board of Directors meetings and events schedule for 2013 is as follows:

Board Meetings will be held on March 17, May 19, July 21, September 15 and November 17.  All meetings begin at 2:30PM and will take place at Mead’s Tavern.

New London Day is scheduled for May 4 from 10AM to 4PM.

Fall Festival is October 5 from 10AM to 4PM.

The Annual Meeting will take place in conjunction with the board meeting on November 17 at 2:30PM.

The Christmas Program will be on December 8 at 2:30PM.

Special events and committee meetings will take place as announced throughout the year.

Thursday, February 14th at 7PM

Join us for an elegant and unique Valentine’s Day meal at historic Mead’s Tavern. The menu consists of pork loin, Waldorf and marinated carrot salads, green beans, sweet potatoes, Harvard beets and a dessert of homemade red velvet cake. Sweet and unsweetened tea, coffee and ice water will accompany the meal (no alcoholic beverages). Enjoy live music performed on our 19th c. piano and take time to explore the pre-restoration tavern. Cost is just $25 per person with all proceeds benefitting the tavern fund. RSVP and submit full payment by Friday, February 8th to reserve a seat. Send payment with your name and contact number to Friends of New London, P.O. Box 220, Evington, VA 24550. Inclement weather date will be February 15th. The tavern is located at the intersection of Alum Springs Road and Town Fork Road just off Route 460 in the heart of New London. Call Randy (434-258-8478) or Chris (434-420-1563) for more information.

On Saturday, November 17 from 8 until Noon, the Friends of New London will be selling beautiful homemade Christmas ornaments.  You can also make a donation of $5 for a chance to win a fantastic framed print of the New London Village painting by artist Lora Fay Harris (Drawing to be held on December 9th).  All of this will take place at the Forest Farmers’ Market in the parking lot of the Forest Library.  The market is having a holiday theme this weekend with great craft items in addition to their usual local produce.  Definitely worth a look!

Sunday, December 9, 2012, at 2:30 PM, the Friends of New London will host a program and book signing by author Mary Miley Theobald.  The event will be at 672 Alum Springs Rd., the FNL office [former New London United Methodist Church] and is open to the public.  From Timberlake Rd. or US 460, turn South onto Turkey Foot Rd. or turn at the Seven Eleven at Wildwood.  Copies of Ms. Theobald’s book will be available for $34.95 with one half of the proceeds benefiting the Mead’s Tavern Capital Campaign.

Mary Miley Theobald has written over 175 magazine articles and eight books.  She received her BA and MA in History at the College of William and Mary and has taught American history and museum studies at Virginia Commonwealth University for thirteen years.

First House: Two Centuries with Virginia’s First Families

Walls do, indeed, talk in this compelling chronicle of Virginia’s 200-year-old executive mansion. Created to coincide with the mansion’s bicentennial in 2013, First House brings to life the private stories of the governors and their families who shaped the destiny of this unique home.  Lavishly illustrated with images old and new, most seen here for the first time, the book traces triumph and tragedy through the turbulence of wars, fires, economic depressions, and renovations in a story that mirrors Virginia’s progress from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first. This stately home on Capitol Square, completed in 1813 and occupied by more than fifty “first families,” has truly earned its place in history as Virginia’s “First House.”

Coming October 2012. Retail $34.95

Governor’s Mansion Press Release:

In 2013, Virginia’s Executive Mansion-the oldest occupied governor’s residence in all the fifty states-marks its 200th anniversary. To celebrate this milestone, the Citizens Advisory Council for Interpreting and Furnishing the Executive Mansion is planning a yearlong series of special events at the mansion and on Capitol Square, capped by the publication of an official bicentennial history of Virginia’s “First House” – a must-read for lovers of Virginia’s proud past.

This handsome coffee table book, written by historian Mary Miley Theobald with an introduction by novelist David Baldacci, and designed by Carol Roper Hoffler of Literati, will chronicle the mansion’s important role as residence, office, and social setting for the past fifty-four Virginia governors. Conceived during the Revolutionary War, built during the War of 1812, and looted during the Civil War, the mansion has endured fires, threats, riots, and hurricanes. Research has unearthed a wealth of stories and illustrations never before published. Tales of famous guests, pets and pranks, and ghosts weave through two centuries of additions, modernizations, and changing interior fashions. Newly discovered photographs, drawings, paintings, and antiques from private and public collections throughout Virginia and around the country bring these stories to life. Interviews with all ten living First Ladies provided a peek into the upstairs lives of the commonwealth’s First Families.

Preparations are well under way for our annual New London Fall Festival which will take place on Saturday, October 6th from 9AM to 4PM.  This year’s activities will be taking place at the newly-acquired Mead’s Tavern, located at 594 Alum Springs Road.  Among the many activities there will be tours of the colonial-era tavern, Brunswick stew making and an antique car show.  We will post more details soon regarding vendors, costumed interpreters and other activities.  We hope that you’ll make plans to attend.

There will be a short board meeting at 1:30PM on Sunday, August 19th before the Garrett lecture.

Friends of New London was represented by seven of our members at yesterday’s conference.  The Virginia Department of Historic Resources and Sweet Briar College’s Tusculum Institute held the workshop-based conference for historical societies Saturday, Aug. 11 at the Elston Inn Conference Center at Sweet Briar College.  The conference, which included an interactive workshop, was geared toward anyone who is involved in one of the hundreds of historical societies in Virginia. Addressing issues that town or county historical societies face, the event featured presentations from speakers with experience in improving fundraising, developing effective advisory or oversight board governance, creating new community partnerships, establishing a social media presence and tapping the resources of statewide organizations.  We managed to network with many of the more than four dozen organizations present and expect to put forward several new initiatives as a result.

On Sunday, August 19, 2012, at 2:30 PM, The Friends of New London, Virginia will host Delegate T. Scott Garrett, for a presentation entitled “Civil War Medicine: Maybe They Weren’t so Barbaric.”

Delegate Scott Garrett is a retired General Surgeon from Lynchburg and currently serves as the Representative to the Virginia House of Delegates for Virginia’s 23rd House District. Delegate Garrett, a graduate of the University of Virginia’s Medical School, spent 24 years practicing medicine, and it was during this time that Delegate Garrett developed an interest in Civil War medicine and began collecting medical kits and information from the Civil War.

Delegate Garret has stated, “I have always been fascinated by how far we, as a society, have come in technology as it regards to healthcare. To see the difference in medical tools and procedures from over 150 years ago is astonishing.”

Delegate Garrett enjoys sharing his collection of medical equipment with students and community groups. His talks are focused on demonstrating the medical procedures and techniques that physicians used during the Civil War and how what they learned helped improve medical care today.

General admission will be free and is open to interested members of the public. Light refreshments will be available. There will be information regarding future events, including FNL’s recent purchase of the 1763 Mead’s Tavern, upcoming FNL participation in Bedford CenterFest and the Bedford Genealogy Fair, and regarding the 2012 Fall Festival at Mead’s Tavern in New London village. Copies of “New London Today and Yesterday,” by Daisy I. Read, will be available for purchase.

From Lynchburg, via US 460 West, just past the junction with Timberlake Road, turn left onto Turkey Foot Rd., at the stoplight. From Bedford, via 460 East, pass New London Academy, enter Campbell Co., then turn right onto Turkey Foot Rd. FNL will be straight ahead, one quarter mile.

Date: Sunday, August 19, 2012
Time: 2:30 PM
Program: “Civil War Medicine: Maybe They Weren’t so Barbaric”
Speaker: Delegate T, Scott Garrett, 23rd District
Admission: Free; Donations Accepted
Location: Friends of New London Museum and Office in the former New London United Methodist Church building, 672 Alum Springs Rd., at intersection with Turkey Foot Rd., Forest, Va.

For further information contact Reve Carwile, Jr., (434) 384 – 8208.