Winchester Tales

09/02/2026

On September 2, 1964, Ringo Starr made a record-store purchase from Armand’s at 234 Cherry Hill Mall while the Beatles were in the area for their concert at Philadelphia’s Convention Hall. That evening, more than 12,000 screaming fans watched the group perform hits including “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “A Hard Day’s Night.” Among Ringo’s purchases was Patsy Cline’s 1961 Decca album Showcase, featuring such classics as “I Fall to Pieces” and “Crazy.” The surviving Armand’s receipt charged him $3.98 for the record—but recorded Wi******er’s famous singer as “P. Kline,” misspelling Cline with a “K.”

There is no longer any question about which Patsy Cline album Ringo chose: his original copy of Showcase, stamped by Armand’s and signed “Ringo” on the back, later surfaced with a remarkable history. Ringo had left it at the Liverpool home of his mother, Elsie, and stepfather, Harry Graves, and it eventually passed to a neighbor’s family. The album was offered by Tracks Auctions on October 6, 2024, with documentation supporting its provenance, but auction records show that it went unsold—so there is no final sale price to report. Still, the record reveals something wonderful: amid the roar of Beatlemania, the Beatles’ country-loving drummer made room in his collection for the unmistakable voice of Wi******er’s own Patsy Cline—even if Armand’s could not spell her name correctly.

08/31/2026

Three Confederate monuments removed from Capitol Square in Richmond are coming to the Shenandoah Valley. The 1875 monument to Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson will stand at Cross Keys Battlefield, scene of one of the final battles of his 1862 Valley Campaign. Statues of Gov. William “Extra Billy” Smith and Wi******er-born surgeon Dr. Hunter Holmes McGuire will come to the James R. Wilkins Wi******er Battlefields Visitor Center at Third Wi******er Battlefield Park. Smith commanded troops at the Second Battle of Wi******er, while McGuire studied medicine here before becoming Jackson’s surgeon and one of Virginia’s leading physicians.

Entrusted to the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation, the monuments will now be put in places where their stories can be taught. A monument separated from its history can become little more than bronze and stone, but placed within the landscape where that history unfolded, it can help tell a deeper and more complete story.

It is far better to tell the stories of our history than to hide them out of sight and mind. Young people deserve to understand what happened on these grounds—the good, the bad, and the ugly—so they may learn from the past and never allow our nation to be placed in such a terrible position again.

08/30/2026

I always wonder how many bodies are buried around Wi******er. Before Mount Hebron cemetery most of the citizens would’ve been buried in the Lutheran cemetery that was on the northeast corner of Loudoun and Boscawen Street. But many poorer people were buried in lots, woods, or fields on the outskirts of town. This poor unidentified soul was most likely a colonial chap with his silver flat buttons. The description in the article puts this grave right around where the Family Dollar store is on Amherst Street. Old reports state that when the Angerona Poor House stood at the west end of Piccadilly Street, the Potter’s Field was far behind it. For those living on the west side of Morgan Street…be mindful when you dig that vegetable garden! 👻

08/30/2026

RAISING CANE
Rutherford B Hayes’ Cane
from the Red Bud Slough
On September 19, 1864, Colonel Rutherford B. Hayes led his Union brigade toward what soldiers called Red Bud Slough during the Third Battle of Wi******er. A slough is a low, swampy stretch of ground filled with mud or slow-moving water—and this one was twenty to thirty yards wide and nearly impassable. Under Confederate musketry, grape and canister, Hayes spurred his horse into the mire, but the animal became hopelessly stuck. Hayes dismounted, struggled through the waist-deep marsh on foot, climbed the opposite bank and waved his cap for his men to follow. “To stop was death,” he later recalled. “To go on was probably the same; but on we started again.” His disorganized but determined soldiers poured across, stormed the Confederate position and helped drive Jubal Early’s army back through Wi******er. Hayes considered the crossing one of the finest moments of his military career.

Years afterward, Hayes—by then the nineteenth president of the United States—was presented with an extraordinary reminder of that day: a wooden cane cut from a tree growing at Red Bud Slough. Upon it was the simple but powerful inscription: “Cane from Red Bud Slough, Battle of Wi******er, 19 September, 1864.” Today, the cane survives in the collection of the Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums in Ohio.

08/30/2026

Yesterday, while metal detecting near the Second Battle of Wi******er, I uncovered a rare fuse adapter made for a Parrott rifle shell. Stamped on its top is a distinct “W,” identifying it as a product of the West Point Foundry. The adapter was screwed into the nose of an iron shell and held a paper time fuse cut to burn for a predetermined number of seconds. When the cannon fired, the flame ignited the fuse, allowing the shell to travel toward its target before exploding and scattering iron fragments. It was most likely fired during the battle on June 13, 1863 when artillery from the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery hurled shells from a position south of Fort Milroy over the farm fields of Glen Burnie. This was overshot which would have landed near Merrimans Lane…in what is a neighborhood today.

The West Point Foundry at Cold Spring, New York, was established after the War of 1812 exposed America’s shortage of cannon and military supplies. By the Civil War, its superintendent, Robert Parker Parrott, had developed the accurate rifled cannon that carried his name, helping make the foundry one of the Union’s leading artillery producers. More than 164 years after this little adapter was likely torn from an exploding shell, its identifying “W” emerged from the Wi******er soil—a small but remarkable piece of the machinery of war and another story rescued from the ground.

08/30/2026

In 1757, by the low flickering candlelight inside his office at Fort Loudoun in Wi******er, young Colonel George Washington bent over his journal. Its pages held military orders, officers’ commissions, lists of wagon horses and reports from Virginia’s dangerous frontier. But among those serious notes, Washington wrote down something far more cheerful—a recipe for making “small beer,” a mild everyday drink commonly enjoyed in colonial America. A drink safer than water when disease was common and rampant.

With that handwritten recipe, Fort Loudoun may have become Wi******er’s first unofficial “microbrewery”—more than 250 years before craft breweries began popping up all around town. Even while commanding the defense of Virginia’s frontier, the future president apparently understood something Wi******er still appreciates today: after a long day’s work, people might need a beer. 🍺

Here is a transcript of Washington’s original note in his journal:

“To Make Small Beer
Take a large Siffer full of Bran Hops to your Taste—Boil these 3 hours then strain out 30 Gallns into a Cooler put in 3 Gallns Molasses while the Beer is Scalding hot or rather draw the Melasses into the Cooler & Strain the Beer on it while boiling Hot. Let this stand till it is little more than Blood warm then put in a quart of Yeaſt if the Weather is very Cold cover it over with a Blankt & let it Work in the Cooler 24 hours then put it into the Cask—leave the b**g open till it is almost done Working—Bottle it that day Week it was Brewed.”

The original handwritten page is preserved by the New York Public Library

08/30/2026

In December 1847, a letter arrived in Clarke County from a woman who had traveled farther from the Shenandoah Valley than almost anyone. Her name was Peggie Potter, formerly enslaved by the Page family of Annfield. After Matthew Page's death, his widow, Ann Randolph Meade Page, worked to free members of the enslaved community and send those willing to go to the new African settlement of Liberia. Historical accounts credit her with freeing at least 33 people, paying their transportation and continuing to assist them after they arrived. By 1847, Peggie was living in Monrovia with her children. She wrote home to Ann Page's daughter Sarah—“Miss Sally”—saying that her family was well and that a person willing to work could make a living there. But life was hard and everything was expensive. What little money Peggie earned went toward feeding and clothing her children, and she asked Sally to send money and supplies so that she could build a better house. At the bottom of his mother's letter, young Daniel Potter made a request of his own: send books. He wanted geography, arithmetic and grammar books, along with a slate, pencils, paper, pens and ink.

The story is complicated by the realities of its time. The American colonization movement that created Liberia is controversial today—and was controversial among African Americans even then—because many free Black Americans rightly considered America their home and had no desire to leave it. But Ann Page's personal motives appear to have been genuinely rooted in her opposition to slavery and her religious convictions. Her husband had refused to permit her to emancipate the people at Annfield during his lifetime; after his death in 1826, she began preparing those willing to leave for freedom and supplied emigrants with provisions. Liberia was certainly no paradise, but neither did it disappear: in 1847, the very year Peggie wrote home, Liberia became an independent republic. Perhaps the most powerful part of Peggie Potter's letter is therefore not politics at all. It is the voice of a mother who had once been enslaved in the Shenandoah Valley, now living as a free woman thousands of miles away, working to put a roof over her children's heads—while her son dreamed of getting enough books to learn about the wider world.

08/30/2026

Colonel Angus McDonald Sr. - The man who
said “No” to George Washington
In March 1777, with the American Revolution raging, General George Washington reached out to Frederick County looking for an experienced fighting man. From headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey, Washington wrote to Angus McDonald Sr. (1727–1778), the Scottish-born soldier and frontiersman who had fought at Culloden, served during the French and Indian War and commanded men during Dunmore’s War. Washington wanted McDonald as lieutenant colonel of a new Continental regiment, serving second in command to Colonel Charles Mynn Thruston. Washington practically pleaded with him, warning that the war was too important to be entrusted to men unfamiliar with the duties of the field. Even Thruston told Washington, “If McDonald will serve, no better Lieut. Colonel could be found.” McDonald, however, declined. In his April 20 reply, his stated reason was that accepting would expose his family to “a prospect of ruin.” But there was apparently more behind the decision. Contemporary General Adam Stephen warned McDonald not to allow his “Highland pride” to keep him from serving, as McDonald resented being placed beneath Thruston, whom he considered far less experienced militarily.

At the time, McDonald was living just north of Wi******er at his estate called Glengarry, named for his ancestral home in the Scottish Highlands. He had purchased the original 370-acre tract from Brian Bruin in 1762 and built his home there; family records say the old Wi******er & Potomac Railroad later crossed the property. The house burned down in the early 1800s. McDonald was no Tory—he was a committed supporter of the American cause and remained active locally during the Revolution. His refusal appears instead to have been a mixture of genuine concern for his family's financial security and the pride of an accomplished old soldier who did not relish serving beneath Thruston. Angus McDonald died at Glengarry on August 19, 1778, only about seventeen months after Washington offered him the commission. Interestingly, the McDonald family history says his death was sudden and accidental: he mistakenly took a dose of tartar emetic - a powerful medicinal compound.

08/29/2026

08/29/2026

In 1901, the Wi******er Evening Star recalled how the mere mention of William Windle’s name once sent neighbors hurrying indoors and children running to their parents. Windle, who suffered from severe mental illness, lived in the mountains of southwestern Frederick County and wandered the countryside armed with his trusted rifle, sometimes firing at travelers or frightening entire households. When a group of men attempted to capture him near his mountain home, Windle spotted them approaching and opened fire, sending them racing back down the road as bullets struck around their horses’ hooves.

Windle was eventually captured while asleep, securely bound, and taken through Wi******er to the state hospital in Staunton. He later escaped and returned to his mountain home, where his unpredictable behavior again terrified the neighborhood until he was recaptured; he died at the hospital in 1901. Soon afterward, his possessions were sold at auction, and the old rifle that had caused so much fear became the day’s greatest curiosity—a haunting relic of the man who had once held an entire Frederick County community in terror.