White Hall (village)

From Cvillepedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

White Hall is an unincorporated community in Albemarle County between the foot of Bucks Elbow Mountain and the Moormans River[1]. It gives its name to the White Hall Magisterial District.

The community was formerly known by such names as Glenn's Store, William Maupin's Store, Maupin's Tavern, Miller's Store, and Shumate's Tavern until 1835, when its present name was adopted in reference to a family known as the Whites living in the area.

History

A 1934 photograph of new enrollees at Camp Albemarle in White Hall. Reproduced from The Crozet Gazette.
Overhead view of Camp Albemarle, a CCC outpost that was later repurposed into a POW camp for captured German soldiers. Reproduced from The Crozet Gazette.

Eighteenth century

Margaret Via, the wife of Daniel Maupin Sr., had been born in White Hall around 1701 to the French immigrant Amer Via. Her and Maupin would go on to obtain more than 1,500 acres in the area, eventually being buried together there on what was once their family estate.

Nineteenth century

Elizabeth Wheeler Hawkins (the mother of Cain Hawkins) was originally a slave owned by the Gillums in Millington off Garth Road in the vicinity of White Hall before being sold to the Harrises during the nineteenth century. Later on, the J.F. Bell Funeral Home made arrangements for both Cain and his wife, Alice Wood Hawkins, to be buried in White Hall. The family of Hugh Carr (who was married to Cain's sister Texie Mae) regularly traveled to White Hall for family visits.[2]

Twentieth century

In 1933, a Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp was established in White Hall. This organization was one of many New Deal programs created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression, with the members working to conserve natural resources in the area. According to J. Harvey Bailey, the engineer for the branch (known as 'Camp Albemarle') in White Hall from 1933 to 1942, “White Hall was one of the several camps who worked especially on suppression of forest fire. It built truck trails and improved secondary public roads and bridges to expedite access to isolated peaks and valleys.” Within the first six months of the camp's existence, the laborers housed there erected an 80’ tall steel fire tower along with the grading of its service road on Carter Mountain. They constructed similar towers on Heards Mountain in southern Albemarle and near Quinque in Greene County, stringing telephone lines through the woods in order to connect the installations with fire wardens and members of their crews.[3]

During World War II, beginning in mid-1943 as German soldiers captured during the North African campaign were transported to Virginia, White Hall hosted about 225 prisoners of war. These men were housed in the former CCC camp and specialized in forestry and other contract work. The dedicated Nazi, SS, and Gestapo personnel among them were filtered out of the group and consigned to Camp Alva in Oklahoma. The operation in White Hall was a branch of the administrative division of POW camps centered around the base of Front Royal in Warren County. According to reports from locals at the time, these German POW's were usually only accompanied by a single guard when working outside of the camp in White Hall and were even permitted to buy refreshments from stores in the area. The last of these prisoners left the camp on May 11, 1946, with the majority of them desiring to stay within the United States.[4]

Map

Location of White Hall within Albemarle County. Reproduced from Google Maps.

References

  1. About White Hall White Hall Community Website, White Hall Ruritan Club, retrieved 8 Jul 2009.
  2. Web. Hawkins, Mr. and Mrs. Cain, Jefferson's University, 02/16/2022
  3. Web. Secrets of the Blue Ridge: “We Can Take It!”—Camp Albemarle Civilian Conservation Corps, The Crozet Gazette, 09/07/2021
  4. Web. Hitler's Wehrmacht in Virginia, 1943-1946, The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, July 1977

External links

White Hall (village) on wikipedia