CITY GROWTH Cities grow in so many ways, and as I watch - and live - in the presence of such communities in transition here in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia I have a grandstand seat at some exciting changes.
Ours is a state which has, from its very start in 1607,
been a farming area to some degree. As the population increased and the settlements moved westward from the Atlantic Ocean varied lifestyles gained a foothold with modified dietary preferences. Less seafood and more wild meats both birds and warm-blooded animals could be found in many Piedmont home than across the Blue Ridge Mountains into the Shenandoah Valley.
New settlers came more from Pennsylvania than from Eastern Virginia a mix of several traditions started the villages, towns and cities of the new area and today far too many residents either overlook or ignore these background of circumstances.
Harrisonburg, Staunton and Waynesboro are each quite different in many ways and to expect them to mature, to grow, mutate, modify and change for either good or bad in identical ways is a faulty concept from the very start.
It is important also that we always remember that each community has a share of malcontents and ardent traditionalist citizens. It has been my experience that neither side is going to simply "give up" or concede that the other may be right in their thinking. It so happens, however that zealots in any such divisive matter or periodically disenchanted with their Utopian views. off guard or simply, and genuine progress can be made in such times by those modernists who readily think they see the mote in the eye of anyone who opposes them.
Without getting into fine details,let's look, briefly, at some of the alleged differences of these three sets of sets of citizens as they have been evident in the development of each of the three cities - Harrisonburg, Stanton, and Waynesboro. Notice, at this particular point that such listings are best initiated in strict alphabetical sequence because one members has, on several occasions, has deemed it possible they could not participate if their positioning in the name chosen was at any place other than primary.
Staunton had major ties with Eastern Virginia not found in the others I has Episcopal/Church of England ties and British trade concepts. Family names tended to be largely English, Welsh,Irish, Scottish, with a sprinkle of Norse and Norman.
Harrisonburg was settled by people who trekked up the Valley from the Lancaster Pa. area. Their trades were agriculture, carpentry, brewing, land acquisition and ownership. They were largely Lutheran and Presbyterian with pockets of groups including Quakers, Pietist German Baptists and various Catholic adherents from the Mediterranean's fringe and from Germanic States, The Low Countries, Scotland, and Ireland.
Waynesboro has roots in Central Europe, with Protestant faith paramount and and industrial aptitudes which
reminds one of the Rhur Valley and the Rhine Palatinate area of Germany, Border States and France. Waynesboro remained longer in the village frame as Tee's Tavern and Basic and
developed, as its name indicates, in that time period when General "Mad Anthony" Wayne was a public figure to be revered and honored by freedom loving folks with an industrial tendency rather than farming or cattle production.
Ask any one of those three groups to describe what "progress" might be,and I will bet they will tell you of plans which will vary with each, if not both of the others!
It remains pretty much the same to this very day.
A.L.M. April 10, 2006 [c598wds]
