Step Back in Time

Just imagine how exciting it would be to learn history by stepping back in time and walking through the events, sights and sounds of yesteryear.

            That’s exactly the kind of adventure 9-year-old Dean Linkimer and his 8-year-old brother Evan experienced recently while visiting their grandparents, Smith Mountain Lake residents Linda and Larry Beard. Their history-laced time travel took place in Hardy at Booker T. Washington National Monument.

            The park is a re-creation of the childhood home of the famous African-American educator, college president and influential statesman, best known for establishing Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, the first college for blacks. Despite his reputation as a respected public figure and champion for racial equality, Washington’s early years were far removed from the success he later achieved.

            A short film in the park’s Visitor Center presents an overview of Washington’s early life, his freedom at the end of the Civil War, and his pursuit of education for himself and others, based on his passionate philosophy: Hard work builds character.

            Ready to begin their self-guided tour of the grounds, Dean, Evan and their grandmother stepped through the center doors into the world as seen by an 1860s slave boy.

            Young Booker grew up on the 207-acre tobacco farm of James and Elizabeth Burroughs. This was a middle-class, small plantation compared to others in Franklin County in the early 1800s, the Burroughs had 10 slaves, including Washington’s mother Jane, who was the plantation cook, and two of his half siblings.

            The visitors said one of their most startling experiences was entering the “home” where Washington and his family lived. The small, window-less, one-room slave cabin doubled as the kitchen for the plantation owners. The children and their mother slept on rags on a dirt floor. Two openings on the side, near the ceiling, let in light as well as the heat in the summer and cold in the winter.

            “This was the whole house?” asked Evan for clarification. “It’s smaller than our room back home,” he said, trying to imagine sharing the tiny space with several family members and no interior walls.

            According to Tim Sinclair, a park ranger at the monument since 1997, Evan’s reaction was exactly what they hoped for.

            “The most important feature of the park is the living illustration of life back then. Comparing our lives to his, it’s quite a contrast,” he said.

            Too young to work in the tobacco fields, 9-year-old Booker “never knew a day of play” according to his later writings. The boy’s tasks included carrying water to the slaves working in the fields, cleaning the yard around the master’s home, transporting corn to the mill and carrying the books to school for Laura Burroughs, who was a teacher.

            “The boys were the same age as Washington when he lived and worked here in Franklin County, so they really saw things through his eyes,” Linda Beard said. “Of course they loved the farm animals and hiking through the woods; the chores, not so much.”

            Washington wrote that being allowed to go to, but not in, the schoolhouse made him realize that getting an education – simply learning to read and write – would be “the best thing next to going to paradise.”

            The monument is one of 379 parks that make up the National Park System. Each park includes a Junior Ranger program, designed to encourage children to learn about the nation’s history, cultural heritage and nature, and helping to protect the areas for future generations to enjoy.

            The Junior Ranger Program at Booker T. is offered in the summer for children ages 6-12 and features interaction with park rangers and participation in activities reminiscent of the late 1800s. Similar experiences are offered through a Junior Ranger booklet, available at the Visitors Center, and an online WebRanger program newly developed by the park service.

            However, the park definitely provides visitors the best opportunity to see, hear, smell and touch life as the young slave boy did nearly 150 years ago. Park rangers and volunteers maintain a plentiful vegetable garden and several reconstructed buildings including a smokehouse, blacksmith shed, horse barn and corn crib. A tobacco field, chicken/duck lot, and two large pigs further enhance the experience.

            During the school year, the park works with public schools in Virginia to help meet Standards of Learning criteria by giving the children hands-on experiences in historical events, writing, research and other educational themes.

            On Oct. 10, the Booker T. Washington National Monument will host a free family fun event. “Harvest Time” will portray life on the mid-19th century tobacco plantation with costumed demonstrations of ordinary farm life, including blacksmithing, wool spinning, kitchen hearth cooking, quilting, apple-butter making and more.

Booker T. Washington National Monument is open daily, year round from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission, parking and all programs are free. The park is located less than a mile south of Westlake Corner on Route 122. For more information, call 540.721.2094 or visit nps.gov/bowa.