of umbrellas and falling sky.

Images of the dark and beautiful, still as active as ever and collecting in my mind...

Taunton State Hospital, from opacity.us.

Bat umbrella via Haute Macabre.

A dream dress via Haute Macabre.

richmond-area history blitzkrieg

Lately we've had more free daylight hours, and have employed ourselves in checking some more local sites off of our list of places to conquer go. We've been thoroughly impressed by all three of our recent adventures, and as always, we highly recommend taking advantage of the places of historical interest you're lucky enough to have within a few minutes of your door.

The Virginia Historical Society

The Virginia Historical Society is really, truly a must-see for Richmond residents. I think I visited the museum in high school, and had very little memory of what I had seen when I went back earlier this month. Of course it contains a very comprehensive summary of Virginia's history dating all the way back to its humble beginnings as the (for-profit!) Virginia Company, but there's a lot more to see. They have scores of vintage Virginia-produced items, from Miller & Rhoads hats to jars of our favorite Meat Juice to an actual Richmond trolley car.


I also just realized that the Historical Society puts its lectures up for download. Get on it!

Wilton

I came across Wilton's web site several years ago and couldn't believe I hadn't been there. I felt a little ashamed, even, having been as far away as Savannah, GA and Salem, MA to drown myself in history, and not having first visited all the house museums in Richmond first. That feeling of shame continued until this month, when we finally got a chance to pay Wilton a visit.

First of all, the place is just gorgeous. Impressive staircase, check. Impressive oil paintings of previous residents, check. Impressive dining room paneled in an icy gray, check. I love it and can't wait to move in. Ha, I wish.

A highlight for me was seeing a beautiful map that William Randolph (the house's original owner) worked on with Peter Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson's dad. Mr. Randolph's study was also decked out as it would have been if he were entertaining, and the accoutrements included some raw oysters that were as lovely as they were fake.

Shirley Plantation

Shirley Plantation is another one that falls into the "can't believe I missed this one" category, because I've been trolling the rt. 5 plantations for years and I've visited way lesser ones and never made it to the MAIN EVENT. I love this place. It's opulent in a very comfortable way, without seeming excessive. The James rages (or at least right now it does, because the river's quite high) just outside the back door, and I can only imagine the incredible sunsets you could witness from the balcony with a whiskey in hand.

I love that the Hill/Carter family were the original residents and still own the place today. The current heir lives upstairs in the house, which is why you can only tour the downstairs. It's very unusual for a house to pass straight down the family line for so long, pretty much all the historical houses you visit are in their 3rd or 4th dynasties at the very least. The family's tenacity for holding on to what is theirs is astounding. When the owner during the Civil War found out that the yankees were on their way, he buried the family's beautiful silver all around the yard. They never found it, and after they left he dug it back up. It's in their dining room right now, with the family crests still etched into the silver perfectly. Though the yankees robbed them blind as per usual, they took pity on the wounded yankee soldiers who had been deposited in their yard, and treated them so kindly that they got a formal letter of thanks from General McClellan. That's what I call true Virginians of the gentleman class: dignity and kindness even in the face of the enemy.

the latest on Poe: drama even in death!

Today is New Year's Day in the Year of Our Poe 201 -- in other words, it would have been Edgar Allan Poe's 201st birthday today. There has been some controversy lately over our late friend and what city should be considered his home, and whether his body should be moved there. I agree with Paul over at All Things Richmond, who says "Richmond has a strong claim to Poe as the place where he was raised, married, wrote and lived half his life." And of course, Poe always referred to himself as a Virginian despite his many travels. You can leave the RVA, but it never leaves you. Poe knew that better than anyone.

Poe descendant Harry Lee Poe, who as spokesperson for Poe's family had the final say in the matter, made an interesting point about the irony of it all:

During his lifetime, one of the great concerns of Edgar Poe was what to do with the body. He stuffed them up chimneys. He bricked them up in the basement and in the catacombs. He hid them under the floor boards. He threw them in the river. He burned them in flaming houses and castles. He fed them to cannibals. He carted them about in oblong boxes. He sunk them in whirlpools. He hid them in secret crypts. He hypnotized them until they oozed. Unfortunately, he died intestate without giving clear instructions as to what we should do with his own body.

Such a strange twist of fate for someone so burial-obsessed! In the end, the Poes have decided not to push for moving Poe from Baltimore to Richmond: "The conclusion of the family is that the whole issue deserves more consideration, and that the family should take it up again in 2049 during the bicentennial of the death of Poe. "

Though it does seem right to me for Poe's body to rest in Richmond, I understand their reluctance to get involved in the complexity of moving a body that's been fine as is for the past hundred and fifty years.

I don't feel any less connected to Poe because of the decision. Nothing has really changed for Richmond, the hometown of our favorite Virginian. The Poe Museum celebrated Poe's birthday this weekend with a 24-hour birthday bash. There's a new middle school in the Southside known as "the Home of the Ravens" in his honor. And Poe's likeness greets me as I travel about the city in busts, statues, mantlepieces, and framed photographs. Indeed he is here with us, and better than just a body -- actually alive in us, as much as ever.

pumphouse news.

As I think we've mentioned before, Pumphouse Park is a favorite Midnight Society hangout. The old stone Pump House is about as goth as it gets here in Richmond, and at the turn of the century the city actually held public dances there. You can see the dance floor with its open sides from the ground below, and you can tell it was once an EPIC room. Well, it looks like it might be re-opened to the public as a visitor's center and a place to hold events, which would mean my fantasy of going to a dance there in a big, flouncy dress could actually come true. I have no idea how I missed these news items from last spring describing the renovation work going on there, but I've seen them now and I'm nearly overcome with anticipation. I can't allow myself to get too excited just yet, because you know what happens to a lot of public projects: nothing. So here's hoping, just a little bit, that the work being done on the Pump House comes to fruition soon! We can't wait for one of Richmond's little-known historical sites to get the attention it deserves.

Photo from Lost Art of the City.

More photos are in the Flickr group, here.

krampus is coming to town

So we've talked about this before, but the concept of Krampus still really wigs me out. But he's been around way longer than I have, so let's raise a glass of grog to our punitive cousin Mr. Krampus. Thanks for keeping us on the straight and narrow, friend.