Institution

<div>Rachel Findlay (ca. 1750–after August 17, 1820) was born into slavery early in the 1750s in the part of Virginia that later became Powhatan County. Her maternal grandmother was an illegally enslaved Indian woman and her mother possibly had both Indian and African ancestry. Virginia law dictated that the children of enslaved women were also slaves, so she and her children were born enslaved. Early in the 1770s Findlay, her brother Samuel, and her young daughter sued their owner, Thomas Clay, on the grounds that because their grandmother's enslavement was illegal, they were also illegally enslaved. The General Court ruled in May 1773 that they were free, but the Clay family sent Findlay and her daughter west before the court reached its verdict and in 1774 sold them to John Draper. He and his family held them in slavery in Wythe County.</div><div><br></div><div>In 1813, Rachel Findlay filed suit in the Wythe County Court to obtain the freedom to which she had been legally entitled but had never enjoyed. After seven years of delays and difficulties and the transfer of the case to the Powhatan County Court, she again won freedom for herself on May 13, 1820. Findlay's approximately forty children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were therefore legally entitled to become free, too. Several of them successfully sued for their freedom, but others may have never known about the suit and its outcome. Findlay became free, but how long she lived as a free person is not known.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Verdict awarding Rachel Findlay her freedom, May 13, 1820, Powhatan County (Va.) Judgments (Freedom Suits), 1807-1844, image courtesy of the  Library of Virginia.

The Library of Virginia honored Rachel Findlay as one of its Virginia Women in History in 2014.

The Virginia Women in History Digital Trail is made possible by the Library of Virginia and American Evolution: Virginia to America, 1619–2019.

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More information about Rachel Findlay's freedom suit

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The granddaughter of an illegally enslaved Indian woman, Rachel Findlay successfully sued for her freedom  in the Wythe County Court and ensured the freedom of many of her descendants. The current Wythe County court house was built in 1902, eighty-nine years after her suit.

Rachel Findlay

A driving tour showcasing the Library of Virginia's Virginia Women in History honorees from the Southwest Virginia region.

<div>Born in Rural Retreat, Doris Crouse-Mays&nbsp;(b. 1958)&nbsp;started her career as a telephone operator and quickly became involved in the labor movement as a shop steward. She joined the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and later worked as an organizer for the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union (later UNITE/HERE). Winning accolades for increasing union membership, Crouse-Mays became the Virginia state field director for the national American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in 1997. She attracted new members and expanded the organization's political influence. In 2001 she served as the statewide coordinator for the AFL-CIO's political program and two years later was named political director of the Virginia AFL-CIO. A member of the Virginia Democratic Party Steering and Central Committee, she was elected to the Democratic National Committee in 2008 and was named to the transition committee for governor-elect Terry McAuliffe in 2013. She serves on the board of Emerge Virginia, which seeks to identify, encourage, and train women to run for political office.</div><div><br></div><div>In 2006 Crouse-Mays became the first woman to hold executive office in the Virginia AFL-CIO when she was elected to a four-year term as its secretary-treasurer. In August 2010 she was the first woman elected president of the Virginia AFL-CIO and was reelected to another four-year term in 2014. In leading the state AFL-CIO, Crouse-Mays has emphasized the importance of labor unions working with businesses to achieve fair wages, health care, job safety, and retirement security for Virginia's workforce.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

A graduate of Rural Retreat High School, Doris Crouse-Mays is dedicated to improving the lives of workers in the state as a labor leader and the first woman to direct the Virginia AFL-CIO. 

Doris Anne Crouse–Mays

<div>A confidante and mother-in-law of the writer Sherwood Anderson, Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver (August 29, 1868-December 18, 1940) continued a family tradition of service to the Lutheran Church. She wrote fiction, poetry, and dozens of church pageants, many in collaboration with her younger sister, Katharine Killinger Scherer Cronk. One of Copenhaver’s poems, "Heralds of Christ," became a well-known hymn. Her advocacy inspired the Women’s Missionary Society to establish the Konnarock Training School to provide elementary-level academic and religious education for Smyth County children who did not have access to other public schools.</div><div><br></div><div>As director of information for the Marion-based Virginia Farm Bureau Federation, Copenhaver advanced strategies for developing southwestern Virginia’s agricultural economy. She emphasized the importance of cooperative marketing of farm products in order to improve the standard of living for farm families.</div><div><br></div><div>Copenhaver practiced such cooperative strategies herself by coordinating the production of textiles out of her home, Rosemont. She hired women to produce coverlets based on traditional patterns and using local wool. Rosemont Industries expanded its offerings to include a wide variety of rugs, bed canopies and fringes, and other household items, some woven, knitted, or crocheted by hand and others manufactured by machine. Rosemont's popular textiles attracted customers from throughout the United States and from Asia, Europe, and South America.</div><div><br></div><div>After Copenhaver’s death, her sister Minerva May Scherer, longtime dean of Marion College, headed Rosemont Industries for two decades. In 1960 some of Copenhaver's children incorporated the business as Laura Copenhaver Industries, Inc., which continues to manufacture traditional textiles.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

As founder of Rosemont Industries (headquartered at her home in Marion) and as a Lutheran lay leader, Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver advocated strategies for improving educational and economic opportunities in southwestern Virginia. Her home on Main Street was later demolished for a fire station.

Laura Lu Scherer Copenhaver

<div>Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell (1749–1825) was compared favorably to her famous brother Patrick Henry, in part because she shared his unwavering drive and impressive oratorical skills. Born in Hanover County, she joined her first husband on the frontier of Southwest Virginia soon after their marriage in 1776. She kept busy, administering to sick and needy people. Soon after her husband’s death, she remarried in 1781. In 1788 her family, which included her own children and stepchildren, moved to the present site of Saltville. That same year, Russell underwent a dramatic conversion to Methodism after attending a series of Methodist sermons.</div><div><br></div><div>Embracing Methodism whole-heartedly, the Russells pledged their wealth to aid the church and influenced many people of the community to join. After her husband’s death in 1793, Madame Russell, as she was known, increased her Methodist activism. She gave up her personal wealth but used the funds she had to support circuit riders and to pay to build churches. With a firm belief in God-given freedom for all people, she freed the slave that she owned. In 1812 she settled into a log cabin with a large room for holding religious meetings. Until her death, she hosted itinerant preachers and alerted community members whenever an impromptu service was to be held. When poor evangelists visited her, she bolstered them with food and clothing, as well as moral support and intellectual stimulation. The Madame Russell Methodist Church in Saltville is named in her honor.<br><br><div><div><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></div><div><small><br></small></div></div></div>

Setting a charitable example, Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell fostered the fledgling Methodist Church in southwestern Virginia as a devoted adherent and through material and compassionate support of the church. Madam Russell United Methodist Church in Saltville was named for her and a replica of her cabin is at the site.

Elizabeth Henry Campbell Russell

Growing up in rural Kentucky, Barbara Kingsolver loved to tell stories. She became a science writer and journalist after earning degrees in biology. In 1987, she faced a crucial decision: throw away the novel she had written or send it to her agent? She chose the latter, and the 1988 publication of <i>The Bean Trees</i> accelerated a highly acclaimed career spanning books, essays, and articles. Her 1998 novel <i>The Poisonwood Bible</i> was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. <i>The Lacuna</i> (2009) received the prestigious Orange Prize for Fiction (now the Women's Prize for Fiction) in 2010. The National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Kingsolver a National Humanities Medal in 2000 for her advocacy of human rights and the environment through her fiction. She even created and funded her own award, the PEN/Bellwether Prize for Socially Engaged Fiction.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>While on a teaching fellowship at Emory and Henry College in Washington County, Kingsolver met and married professor Steven Hopp. They spent summers in a log cabin on his farm and in 2004 settled in Meadowview. Concerned about the nation's fast-food culture, Kingsolver and her family decided to rely on only locally raised and produced food for a year. Their account, published as <i>Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life</i> (2007), became a best seller and spurred the creation of the Meadowview Farmers Guild to promote the local economy and the Harvest Table Restaurant, which emphasizes regional ingredients.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br>In addition to writing, Kingsolver continues her commitment to local food by raising poultry and Icelandic sheep and tending a large vegetable garden on her family's farm.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;<br><br><small>Reprinted by permission of the Library of Virginia.</small>

Acclaimed novelist and writer Barbara Kingsolver addresses issues of social justice, the environment, and human rights through her fiction and nonfiction, and helped create the Harvest Table Restaurant after the publication of her best-selling work Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (2007).  

Barbara Kingsolver 

<p>Wise County native Katherine O'Neill Peters Sturgill (March 3, 1907–June 19, 1975) began playing the parlor organ and singing Irish tunes for her father as a child. Known as Kate, she had a lifelong interest in mountain tunes. After her marriage to Sidney Peters, she formed the Lonesome Pine Trailers in 1927. The band performed a mixture of sacred songs, folk tunes, and instrumental dance tunes. She later began writing original compositions.</p><p><br /></p><p>During the Great Depression, Peters put her skills to work through the Works Progress Administration, which funded the construction of a cabin near the town of Norton to serve as a community recreational facility. There, she and her sister taught handcrafts, music, and dance, and put on plays. The sisters also provided lunch for undernourished students at the nearby school. During this time she met a WPA folk song collector who recorded her in 1939. She also collected folk songs, sometimes assisting her mother's relation A.P. Carter, of the legendary Carter Family musical group. As part of the Cumberland Valley Girls in the 1940s, Peters performed on the WNVA radio station in Norton and recorded with Folk-Star Records in Tennessee. In her later years, after her first husband died and she married former coal miner Archie Sturgill, she became well known as a local funeral singer. </p><p><br /></p><p>Kate Sturgill's rich legacy lives on through her recordings at the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center, as well as the Country Cabin II, a venue on the Crooked Road music trail that traces its ancestry to the WPA cabin, and the annual Dock Boggs and Kate Peters Sturgill Festival.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</p>

Ballad singer and songwriter Kate Peters Sturgill taught handcrafts, music, and dance at the Country Cabin, built near Norton by the WPA in 1937, and later preserved the music of her Appalachian region through her recordings and collection of folk songs. Country Cabin II carried on that tradition.

Kate Peters Sturgill

<div>Born in the Copper Creek community in Scott County, Maybelle Addington Carter (May 10, 1909-October 23, 1978) learned to play the banjo, guitar, and autoharp. She was an original member of the Carter Family, a trio that included her brother-in-law, Alvin Pleasant Delaney Carter, and her first cousin, Sara Elizabeth Dougherty Carter, who was also A. P. Carter’s wife. The group performed locally at churches, schools, and social events. In 1927 the Carter Family traveled to Bristol to audition for the Victor Talking Machine Company and made several records. Invited to Victor’s studios in Camden, New Jersey, for further sessions, the group eventually recorded hundreds of songs. The Carter Family’s fame also derived from appearances on radio shows that could be heard across the country.</div><div><br></div><div>After the original Carter Family broke up in 1943, Maybelle Carter and her three daughters, Anita, Helen, and Valerie June, began performing on numerous radio stations, including Richmond’s WRVA. By 1950 she had joined Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry radio show. She became known as "Mother Maybelle" and later as the Mother of Country Music.</div><div><br></div><div>Carter mastered several guitar styles including Hawaiian slide guitar, but she is most famous for the "Carter scratch" or "Carter lick," a dynamic thumb-lead style that powered most of the Carter Family’s recordings. During the folk music revival of the 1960s Carter often performed on the autoharp and reprised many of the Carter Family’s classic tunes, such as "Wildwood Flower." Youthful folk music audiences embraced her and her music, and she appeared on the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s classic <i>Will the Circle Be Unbroken</i> album. In 1970 the Carter Family was the first group inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.<br><br><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small><br></div>

Born in the small Southwest Virginia town of Nickelsville in 1909, Maybelle Addington Carter grew up surrounded by traditional Appalachian folk music and learned to play the banjo, autoharp, and guitar. After marrying Ezra Carter in 1926, Maybelle formed a trio with her brother-in-law A.P. Carter and sister-in-law and first cousin Sara Carter called the Carter Family. One year later, the Carter Family was discovered in Bristol, TN when the group recorded its first record. The Carters shot to fame with their traditional "hillbilly music" and became known as the first country music stars. Maybelle later formed a group called Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters with her daughters Anita, Helen, and Valerie June (most famously known as June Carter Cash). Mother Maybelle Carter, as she became known during the height of her success, was a pioneering guitarist and a highly influential figure in the development of country music.

Maybelle Addington Carter

<div>The daughter of a farmer, Nancy Melvina "Vinnie" Caldwell (August 4, 1868–February 11, 1956) grew up in Carroll County. She attended the local public school and, at her mother's urging, took and passed an examination to become a teacher. Miss Vinnie, as she was known, taught at a series of schools until late in the 1890s. Frustrated by her low salary and the difficulties of teaching in an impoverished rural school system, Caldwell left teaching, Galax, and, later, the state.</div><div><br></div><div>By 1920 she had returned to Galax and became involved in local politics, probably after women gained the right to vote that year. In 1927, the Democratic Party in Carroll County nominated her for the county's seat in the House of Delegates. Although southwestern Virginia was a stronghold of the Republican Party, and Republicans captured every other major office in the county, Caldwell defeated her male opponent by a vote of 1,990 to 1,895. She joined three other women in the assembly when it convened in January 1928. She sat on the Committees on Schools and Colleges, on Asylums and Prisons, and on Manufactures and Mechanic Arts. She introduced several bills related to Galax and Carroll County and was a patron of an unsuccessful bill to appropriate $100,000 for pensions for mothers.</div><div><br></div><div>Caldwell did not seek reelection in 1929, but maintained a keen interest in current events for the rest of her life and devoted herself to welfare work in the Galax area.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Larnette Snow, librarian, on behalf of the sixth-grade American history students (2013–2014) at St. Paul School, Cana, Carroll County.<br><br></i><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><i><br></i></div>

One of the earliest women to win election to Virginia's House of Delegates, Vinnie Caldwell also helped her family operate the Bluemont Hotel (no longer standing) on the northwest corner of Main and Center Streets, in Galax.

Nancy Melvina "Vinnie" Caldwell

<div>Born in North Carolina about 1844, Orleana Hawks Puckett (d. October 21, 1939) received little formal education before she married John Puckett at about age sixteen. They settled close to his family near Groundhog Mountain in Patrick County. Her first child was born in 1862 but died a few months later of diphtheria. Of her twenty-three subsequent pregnancies, none of the children born living survived more than a few days, possibly as a result of Rh hemolytic disease.</div><div><br></div><div>Orleana Puckett and her husband moved in 1875 to a nearby farm in Carroll County, where he built a two-story log house. She first served as a midwife in 1889, when no doctor or other midwife could be found for a neighbor. Puckett soon began traveling around the region, sometimes up to twenty miles distant, to deliver babies. She never charged for her services and became known throughout the area for her compassion and skill, having never lost a mother or baby during the more than 1,000 deliveries she attended. Forced to move from her home by the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway in 1939, she died shortly afterward. A small cabin on her property was preserved by the National Park Service and incorrectly interpreted as Puckett's house. Continuing her legacy of care, the Orelena Hawks Puckett Institute, in Asheville, North Carolina, works to promote and strengthen child, parent, and family development.</div><div><br></div><div><i>Nominated by Larnette Snow, librarian of Blue Ridge and Meadows of Dan Elementary Schools, on behalf of Tammy Harrison's and Mary Slate's fifth-grade students, Blue Ridge Elementary School, Ararat.</i></div><div><br><br></div><div><b>Orleana or Orlean?</b></div><div>Researchers often face difficulties when primary sources don't agree. Throughout her lifetime, Orleana Puckett's first name was spelled differently by those who heard her name. For example, census takers recorded Olinah (1850), Pauline (1860), Aulina (1870), Orlena (1880), Aulina (1900), Orlenna (1910), Orlean (1920), and Orlene (1930). In 1913, when Puckett applied for a pension based on her husband's service in the Confederate army, the notary public who filled out the form spelled her name Orleana. However, descendants of her family and residents of the community where she lived remember her as Aunt Orlean. She could not write, so we don't know how she spelled it herself. Although we selected Orleana as a likely spelling based on our interpretation of the evidence, other researchers favor Orlean. What would you decide?<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Successful midwife Orleana Hawks Puckett lived in a two-story log cabin on Groundhog Mountain, but was forced to move in 1939 for construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway. The cabin at milepost 189.9, which had also been located on her property, has been erroneously interepreted as her home.

Orleana Hawks Puckett

<div>After serving for four years as an assistant commonwealth's attorney in Patrick County and practicing law privately, Mary Sue Terry (b. 1947) represented the counties of Henry, Patrick, and Pittsylvania and the city of Martinsville in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1978 until 1985. She supported legislation that established the concept of equitable distribution of marital property in divorce cases and sponsored tougher penalties for drunk drivers. In 1985 Terry became the first woman elected to statewide office in Virginia and the second woman to serve as a state attorney general in the United States. In her reelection bid in 1989, she became the first elected official in Virginia history to receive more than one million votes. As attorney general, Terry successfully proposed legislation to reform insurance rates; to strengthen laws related to drunk driving, drug abuse, and family violence; and to rewrite laws on waste management and clean water. In 1993 Terry resigned as attorney general to campaign for governor. Despite an early and significant lead, she ran a lackluster campaign and lost to George F. Allen.</div><div><br></div><div>Born in Martinsville, Mary Sue Terry received her undergraduate degree from Westhampton College and a master's degree and a law degree from the University of Virginia. She was a visiting professor at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond from 1995 until 2001. Today, Terry lives on her family farm in Patrick County, maintains a law practice, and consults for Microsoft Corporation. Her significance in Virginia history and her continuing service to Virginia led Doreen Pauley's eleventh-grade Advanced Placement United States History class at Sherando High School, in Stephens City, and D'Anna Lynna Gibson, an eighth-grade student in Katie Sandlin's class at the Gereau Center for Applied Technology and Career Exploration, in Rocky Mount, to nominate Terry as one of the 2009 Virginia Women in History.<br><br><span><small>Reprinted with permission of the Library of Virginia.</small></span><br></div>

Mary Sue Terry became the first woman elected to statewide office in Virginia when she was elected attorney general in 1985. She grew up on her family's farm in the Patrick County community of Critz, where she continues to reside.

Virginia Women in History - Southwest Virginia Region

Rachel Findlay

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