Our much-anticipated England Run branch of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library opened yesterday to the delight of library patrons. Opening day featured tours of the library, as well as programs and games for kids and teens. Read about its "stunning" debut in today's Free Lance-Star and find out more about the England Run branch here on our website.
Our England Run Library was recently featured in this article by the Free Lance-Star. The book shelves are in, the books have been delivered, and now it's just up to a team of staff and volunteers to stock our newest library in time for opening day on Monday, October 4.
The Northern Neck runs from Falmouth in Stafford County all the way down to Windmill Point in Lancaster County, bounded by the Rappahannock River to the south and the Potomac River to the north. Now it’s a sleepy section of Virginia but it was once called the Athens of the New World.
What a foreign world it seems to us today—the antebellum Northern Neck--where wealthy white plantation owners bought and sold slaves with ease along with the services of bound whites for years at a time. How could such a system that relied on keeping people in their places and maintaining the established order bring forth some of the greatest leaders of the Revolutionary period? History is complicated, and Accommodating Revolutions digs into court documents and newspaper accounts to flesh out what was going on with those who served the gentry as the winds of political and religious upheaval shook Virginia.
Between April and September 1862, an estimated 10,000 slaves fled the South through our region. As part of the local Civil War Sesquicentennial commemorations, the Trail to Freedom project was designed to give the public a better understanding of the experiences of those whom the war impacted greatly but are often only a footnote in history books.
This account has been compiled from the Free Lance newspaper of Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 16, 1894 through September 27, 1895, by Robert A. Hodge.
Postcards voicing support for fully funding the 2010-2011 library budget request are coming in from Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania, Westmoreland, and beyond!
See what some of our supporters have to say about the importance of the library in their lives:
Originally published in 1850--less than 75 years after the war--this attractive reprint of a history classic gives a unique narrative to the conflict based on the author's travels to the original sites, some of which are now unrecognizable. The Field-Book also contains many unique illustrations by the author of places, people, and objects important to the history of the American Revolution.
