Horses In The Snow

Title

Horses In The Snow

Artist

Greg Reed

Medium

Photograph - Photo

Description

Near The Plains, VA c.1972. Mamiya C220 with 80mm lens on Ektachrome.

The Plains Virginia

Quaint, simple, natural, casual and unpretentious, The Plains is a community where residents relish mixing tales of the town’s Civil War past with its present-day life.
It’s nestled in one square mile in Fauquier County about 50 miles west of Washington, a community marked by rolling hills, fields, farms and low mountains.
“There are no definite roads or names for town borders,” said Marcia Markey, town historian. “On the east, the dividing line between county and town cuts through the Cecil Moffett house — an old family now deceased — while on the west it runs through the field beyond the Stuart Farm home.”
The Plains, incorporated in 1910, is a town of 217 people, said Mayor Robert Gurtler, who is in his fourth term and 27th year of public service.
“We lock the door when we go out to dinner, shopping or to a movie but generally not during the day,” said Markey’s husband, William Markey, a retired physicist and chairman of the town planning commission.

History unfolds: The Markeys’ clapboard house, built in 1852, was originally a two-story with a blacksmith’s shop above. “I’m sure Colonel John S. Mosby” — a Confederate soldier who frightened the Union army — “walked through these rooms,” he said.
Recounting a beloved Civil War story, William Markey said, “Mr. Clark sat on his porch across the street watching Union troops under the command of Major General John Pope march by on their way to the Shenandoah Valley. He whittled notches on a stick as cannon passed.”
“Then he told a young lad, one who could ride well, to take the road from Middleburg, which is now Virginia Route 50, and tell General Jackson, ‘This is how many cannon are coming,’ ” Marcia Markey added. “In the military world, you can estimate troop size by the number of cannon. Jackson fled, and when Pope arrived there were no Confederate troops.”
After the Civil War, the Markey home became a residence. “We came in 1973 with three young daughters, and they thought we brought them to no-man’s land,” she said. “But we soon got to know everybody and now they say, ‘We were honestly raised by a village.’ ”

Audrey Hoffer November 21, 2014

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February 12th, 2016

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