Looking for Something Fun To Do? Hat Tip to My Granddaughter for a Great Idea!

I'm enjoying my granddaughter's book bingo for 2025. One idea struck me as super fun and wonderful. 

"Read 3 historical plaques to learn a town's history."

Did you know that there is a historical marker database? It occurred to me to do a search and, sure enough, there is. I checked it for the markers in Woodstock and there are dozens here. If I expand the search to nearby counties, there are hundreds. Sounds like future dates!

One marker that I looked for today was about an event during the Civil War that inspired me to write a short story, A young retarded man, Davy Getz, was found by Union soldiers with a hunting rifle. The Union identified anyone with a gun who wasn't wearing a uniform as a bushwhacker. Townspeople tried to explain to General Custer that Davy was just a simple minded young man out squirrel hunting. Nevertheless, he was arrested and forced to walk to Harrisonburg where he was executed. The last thing a Woodstock merchant, a Union sympathizer, said to Custer was, "May you die in a bloody grave!" As we all know, that's exactly what happened to him at the Little Big Horn.

George Custer

When I went searching for the marker, it wasn't in the location I remembered. Well...it apparently wasn't a lapse in memory. The database records the marker as "reported missing." 

I sometimes fantasize about leading a "ghost walk" in Woodstock and that location would definitely be on the map. Davy's sad story deserves to be told and retold along with a list of the atrocities committed by the Union in their all-out immoral war against the South. 

As they say, history is written by the winners, and the demonization of the South continues to this day, but the fact is that the Union with Lincoln's enthusiastic approval, waged a total war against not only soldiers but women and children, a strategy condemned by the Church under the just war theory.   

At any rate, I suggested to my husband that we should go on a "date" finding and reading some of the historical markers in Woodstock (There are 33 listed.) and then go out to lunch. We'll wait for a nice day, maybe when the redbuds are blooming. Maybe instead of going to a restaurant, we'll take a picnic to one of the parks. For a creative young couple on a limited budget, that would make a delightful day's outing for an inexpensive date. It would also be a fun homeschool outing as a history field trip. This area is particularly rich in Civil War history.