The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in portions of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland and Virginia.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area was established on May 8, 2008 by Public Law 110-229, the Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008. [1] [2] The designation provides a framework for the promotion and interpretation of the area's cultural and historic character, with particular emphasis on the region's role in the American Civil War, and the preservation of the natural and built environment.
The National Heritage Area extends from Gettysburg in the north to Monticello in the south. It is managed by the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership, which encompasses the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Scenic Byway. The heritage area roughly follows the route of the Old Carolina Road.
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground Partnership is a non-profit organization dedicated to raising the awareness of the history within the Gettysburg-Monticello corridor. Its mission is to promote and support civic engagement through history education, economic development through heritage tourism, and the preservation of cultural landscapes in one of the nation’s most important historic regions. Partners include over 350 municipal, business, and non-profit organizations, including many elected bodies within the four-state region. All related entities are collectively referred to as the Journey Through Hallowed Ground. [3] [4]
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area denotes the region that Congress designated as a Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area in 2008, in a program affiliated with the National Park Service. There are 15 counties in the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area, spanning those four states. With 400 years of European, American, and African-American heritage, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground is a National Heritage Area with a National Scenic Byway running through it. [5] It contains World Heritage sites, over 10,000 sites on the National Register of Historic Places, 49 National Historic districts, nine Presidential homes & sites, 13 National Park Units, hundreds of African-American and Native American heritage sites, 30 Historic Main Street communities, sites from the Revolutionary War, French-Indian War, War of 1812, and the largest single collection of Civil War sites in the nation. [6]
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area comprises Adams County in Pennsylvania, Frederick and Carroll counties and the eastern part of Washington county in Maryland, the area around Harpers Ferry in Jefferson County, West Virginia, and Loudoun, Fauquier, Culpeper, Orange, Albemarle, Greene, Madison and Rappahannock counties and parts of Fairfax, Prince William and Spotsylvania counties in Virginia. [7]
The Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Scenic Byway refers to the 180-mile (290 km) road that intersects the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area. [8] Once known as Old Carolina Road, [9] the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Scenic Byway runs 180 miles (290 km) through three states and includes portions of US Rt. 15, VA 231, VA 20, and VA 53, running through Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. The JTHG National Scenic Byway is one of 150 scenic byways nationwide designated by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation.
In the summer of 2018, the Journey Through Hallowed Ground launched National History Academy, an innovative five-week residential summer program for top high school students from throughout the country. The Academy teaches the foundations of American democracy through place-based education. [10] [11] [12]
National History Academy’s mission is to inspire students to understand the foundations of American democracy and the responsibilities of citizenship. [13] The first of its kind, the Academy was founded to address the current crisis in American civic and historical literacy. [14]
During the five-week course, students study American history, from the Native American settlement era through the civil-rights movement, with an emphasis on significant events and figures between 1765 and 1865. The group alternates between classroom studies and visits to historic sites within and near the Journey Through Hallowed Ground National Heritage Area. [10]
National History Academy’s motto, “Historia Est Magistra Vitae,” is taken from Cicero’s De Oratore and means “history is the teacher of life.” [15]
The Academy has capacity for ninety rising 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students each summer. In 2018, 233 students applied, and 89 students from 28 states enrolled. Courses are taught by six master teachers. Students are also overseen by twelve college counselors.
National History Academy is hosted at the Foxcroft School in Middleburg, Virginia, a private secondary school. [16] The campus is located 45 miles from Washington, D.C. and within a three-hour drive of all the historic sites that the students visit. Filmmaker Ken Burns is featured in the Academy’s promotional video. [17]
The curriculum is built around four components: (1) history cases; (2) parliamentary debates; (3) a speaker series; and (4) visits to the defining sites of American history. [18]
The Academy uses the case-based History of American Democracy curriculum developed by Harvard Business School Professor David A. Moss. The cases provide an interdisciplinary and contextual examination of key historic events, permitting students to consider multiple viewpoints and to place themselves in the role of decision makers. In 2018, Professor Moss taught the first case on the United States Constitution at James Madison’s Montpelier.
The Academy offers a parliamentary debate program in partnership with the Better Angels and its founder, David Blankenhorn. The College Board provided the initial funding for this partnership. The debates are designed to encourage civil discourse across the partisan divide in an open and respectful environment. This formal style of parliamentary debate allows students to explore challenging contemporary issues in contrast to the historical debates studied in the cases.
The Academy invites more than 20 nationally recognized guest speakers to supplement classroom activities. Among the 2018 guest speakers were David Rubenstein, Ernest Green, Margaret Richardson, Brent Glass, Jon Parrish Peede, Trevor Potter, Douglas Owsley, Ron Maxwell and Robert Duvall. [19]
The Academy alternates classroom work with visits to the defining historic sites in the region, from Gettysburg to Harpers Ferry, Washington, D.C., Charlottesville and Colonial Williamsburg. Students experience iconic National Parks, museums, presidential homes, battlefields, and Civil Rights sites. [20] [21]
Adams County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 103,852. Its county seat is Gettysburg. The county was created on January 22, 1800, from part of York County, and was named for the second President of the United States, John Adams. On July 1–3, 1863, a crucial battle of the American Civil War was fought near Gettysburg; Adams County, as a result, is a center for Civil War-related tourism. The county is part of the South Central Pennsylvania region of the state. Adams County comprises the Gettysburg metropolitan statistical area, which is also included in the Harrisburg–York–Lebanon combined statistical area.
Loudoun County is in the northern part of the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. In 2020, the census returned a population of 420,959, making it Virginia's third-most populous county. The county seat is Leesburg. Loudoun County is part of the Washington–Arlington–Alexandria, DC–VA–MD–WV Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Middleburg is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 673 as of the 2010 census. It is the southernmost town along Loudoun County's shared border with Fauquier County.
A Pure Michigan Byway is the designation for a segment of the State Trunkline Highway System in the US state of Michigan that is a "scenic, recreational, or historic route that is representative of Michigan's natural and cultural heritage." The designation was created with the name Michigan Heritage Route by the state legislature on June 22, 1993, and since then six historic, seven recreational and seven scenic byways have been designated by the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), and another two have been proposed. These byways have been designated in both the Upper and Lower peninsulas of the state. The current name was adopted on December 30, 2014, and it references the Pure Michigan tourism marketing campaign.
Oak Hill is a mansion and plantation located in Aldie, Virginia that was for 22 years a home of Founding Father James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President. It is located approximately 9 miles (14 km) south of Leesburg on U.S. Route 15, in an unincorporated area of Loudoun County, Virginia. Its entrance is 10,300 feet (3,100 m) north of Gilberts Corner, the intersection of 15 with U.S. Route 50. It is a National Historic Landmark, but privately owned and not open to the public.
The Washington Heritage Trail is a 136.0-mile (218.9 km) National Scenic Byway through the easternmost counties of West Virginia's Eastern Panhandle. The trail forms a loop through the three counties and traces the footsteps of George Washington and the marks his family left in the Eastern Panhandle. In addition to homes and sites related to the Washingtons, the Washington Heritage Trail also includes various museums, historic districts, parks, and other sites of historic significance in the area.
Prospect Hall is a historic mansion, built beginning around 1787 on what was known at the time as "Red Hill", the highest elevation in the area of Frederick, Maryland.
The Lariat Loop National Scenic and Historic Byway is a National Scenic Byway and a Colorado Scenic and Historic Byway located in Jefferson County, Colorado, USA. The byway is a 40-mile (64 km) loop in the Front Range foothills west of Denver through Golden, Lookout Mountain Park, Genesee Park, Evergreen, Morrison, Red Rocks Park, and Dinosaur Ridge. The Lariat Loop connects to the Mount Blue Sky Scenic Byway at Bergen Park.
The Lucketts School in Lucketts, Virginia was built in 1913. It is a wood-frame schoolhouse with elements of Colonial Revival and Craftsman style. It was originally known as Lucketts High School and was expanded in 1919 with additional classrooms and in 1929 with a small auditorium. It was one of the first multi-room schools in Loudoun County, and remains one of the best-preserved early 20th century schools in the county. The last high school students graduated from Lucketts in 1938, but the school was used as an elementary school until 1972 when a new Lucketts Elementary School was built on an adjoining site. Education still continues here in the form of certified child care offered to residents of Loudoun County.
The Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area Association (VPHA) is an American nonprofit preservation and historic organization in Middleburg, Virginia. Founded in 1995 as the Mosby Heritage Area Association (MHAA), its mission is to educate about, and advocate for, the preservation of the historic, cultural and scenic resources in the Northern Virginia Piedmont.
The Trail of the Ancients is a collection of National Scenic Byways located in the U.S. Four Corners states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. These byways comprise:
Northern Rio Grande National Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The national heritage area includes a section of the upper Rio Grande Valley that has been inhabited by the Puebloan peoples since the early Pre-Columbian era.
The Delaware River Greenway Partnership (DRGP) is a non-profit organization, created in 1989 and located in Stockton, New Jersey, in the historic Prallsville Mills complex. DRGP's mission is to promote cross-river connections and communication, and to preserve and enhance the natural and historic resources of the lower Delaware River in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
The Red Fox Inn & Tavern, also known as the Middleburg Inn and Beveridge House, is a historic inn and tavern located in Middleburg, Loudoun County, Virginia. According to the National Register of Historic Places placard on the building, the Red Fox Inn was established circa 1728. Some historic artifacts on the building date to about 1830, with additions and remodelings dating from the 1850s, 1890s, and the 1940s. It consists of a 2 1/2 story-with-basement, five-bay, gable-roofed, fieldstone main block, with a two-story, three-bay, gable-roofed fieldstone rear wing. The front facade features a one-story, one-bay, pedimented porch dating from the 1940s. It has a standing seam metal gable roof and exterior end chimneys. The buildings exhibits design details in the Federal and Colonial Revival styles. It is thought to be one of the oldest continuously operated inns in Virginia as well as the United States. The Red Fox Inn & Tavern has served a variety of functions including: stagecoach stop, inn, tavern, butcher shop, apartment house, post office, and hotel.
George Carter I (1777—1846), son of Robert "Councillor" Carter the III and Frances Ann Tasker Carter was an American plantation owner most famous for building Oatlands Plantation, an estate located in Leesburg, Virginia. Although he unsuccessfully opposed his father's emancipation of slaves in the early 19th century, Carter owned slaves and became one of the wealthiest individuals in Virginia's Loudoun County.