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150 Year Old Town
Minutes Rise Again
In 2005,
historians wondered what had happened to Harrisonburg’s
earliest town council minutes. The Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical
Society
had copies of a Daily News Record series of 36 articles about them in
the late 1930’s,
but where did the minutes go after that?
In early
2006 Harriet L. Welch, co-chair of research for the Court Days
Festival, was
still hunting for the minutes. She said “I was just looking for
records
for the town since there really isn't anything separate at the county
court
house - just one Hustings
Court
minute book from the 1860s. That's when someone suggested calling the
city
clerk.” Welch contacted Bonnie Ryan at Harrisonburg’s city offices and Ryan
told her
that the minute books were being stored in the vault at the municipal
building. This was so exciting that Welch immediately invited JMU
history
professor Dorothy A. Boyd-Bragg
to
join her in the first visit. The two historians were soon poring
over a
150-year-old ledger that may not have been opened in over a half
century.
Welch
and
Boyd-Bragg found more than they expected. Soon they experienced
what
Welch calls “stunned astonishment”, as they discovered surprising
choices of
taxation. The subject of the tax that amazed them was described
with a
word that is not in polite usage, but is often associated with an
unmarried
woman who is sexually active. Welch and Boyd-Bragg were startled
to see a
tax on these individuals. Reading further they found that nearly
every household
had one. And some households even had two. They puzzled
over this
until the next day when Welch thought to consult a dictionary.
She found
that the word had, at one time, referred to a female dog. Now it
made
sense. And according to Boyd-Bragg they
have
not stopped laughing about the incident yet.
The
resurgence of interest in Harrisonburg’s
early history has been spurred by the Court Days Festival since its
first event
in 2005. The organizers and reenactment volunteers attempt to
recreate
the tradition of court day and local county life of the
1850s. Town
council minutes were welcomed as a means to portray the issues and
attitudes of
the day even more accurately at the festival this June 2. The
festival
organizers were excited by the possibilities. Eddie Bumbaugh, executive
director of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, suggested commissioning
a play
based on the minutes. As plans grew, so did the need for making
multiple
copies of the thick ledger.
While
mulling over options for duplicating the ledger, serendipity
struck. The
festival director, Karen Lee, who works at James Madison
University
on the
Information Systems team, had just moved to a new building on campus
and found
out that a colleague only eight steps away from her office did
professional-quality
digitizing of historical documents. Barry King, another member of
the JMU
Information Systems team, was a history buff and enjoyed preserving
ledgers. Barry is a board member for the Plains District
Memorial Museum
and digitally archives many historical ledgers and written
artifacts. He
volunteered to digitize the 1849-1859 Harrisonburg
minutes and coordinated with Bonnie Ryan to carry out the photography
project. Lee helped Harrisonburg Downtown
Renaissance
to submit a grant proposal to develop and produce a professional play
based on
the city’s minutes. When the Arts Council of the Valley awarded a
grant
for the project, she started seeking a writer, and Harriet Welch began to transcribe the
minutes.
The group
commissioned Roger A. Hall, a JMU professor of theater and teacher of
advanced
playwriting, to write a play based on the minutes. He says, “As I
read
those minutes of the first ten years of the town’s existence, I could
sense the
council members feeling their way and trying to figure out the best
ways to do
things, such as raise money for operating the town. They really
did go
round and round about the best way to tax dogs over the course of three
separate meetings while voting on and rejecting several different
plans, such as
those discussed in the play. Then too, they often passed an
ordinance
only to change it or rescind it a few days later. They passed an
ordinance to pen up and sell loose hogs, only to amend it after
problems arose
with the enforcement of the original law. They passed a law
requiring
exhibitors to get a license only to grant exceptions for musical and
scientific
presentations soon after.”
The new
play is called “Dog Days at the Town Council”. The prior play “Devier’s
Day in
Court”, based on a local 1850’s deposition, has played to packed
audiences for
two years at the festival. It will play twice on June 2
alternating with
two performances of the new play that looks at how the council
struggled to
tame the town’s problems. Director Tom Arthur has agreed to mount
both
plays with the help of seasoned actors from The Playhouse, such as
George and
Joyce Wead, Jay Zehr, and Ted Swartz. Arthur calls the council
play “fun
and workable”. Though every ordinance in the play comes
directly
from the town council minutes, the presentation makes for light-hearted
entertainment.
Yet another
play, of a more serious variety, is being produced and directed by Lori
Smilowitz
for Court Days Festival. Entitled “A Drop Too Much”, the play is
a nineteenth-century
melodrama attempting to promote temperance. It will occur
in Court
Square Theater following the outdoor drama of a recreated temperance
rally and
march. The play Mrs. Hardesty’s Tea had its debut in 2006 and
will be
presented again June 2 in Court Square Theater.
Bonnie Ryan
continues to watch over the town council minutes but is pleased to know
that
its images and transcription will soon be making their way to local
libraries,
museums and universities, such as JMU Special Collections, Massanutten
Regional
Library and Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.
Massanutten
Regional Library is showing the process of transforming the 1849 ledger
into
the finished play with a display in its atrium from May 17 to June
8. The premiere of “Dog Days at the Town Council” can be
seen on
June 2 at the Rockingham County Courthouse at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m..
A $5
button admits you to all four plays as well as to day-time wagon rides
and
evening viewing of a magnificent grand ball. To view samples of
the
digitized minutes and learn more about the Court Days Festival, see www.courtdaysfestival.org
or contact leekr@jmu.edu .
Transcription of minutes for first
year (2 Apr 1849 - 31 Mar 1850) (.pdf file)
Roger Hall on writing play based on
Council Minutes
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