USA - Virginia - Mapcard (3)

VIRGINIA
Site of the first English settlement in the New Worls at Jamestown in 1607. Home of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, Tyler, Harrison and Wilson. Capital of the Confederate States during the Civil War and site of more than half the battles of that war. From Atlantic beaches to Appalachian mountains, Virginia is a wonderful state to visit.

Sent by Jennifer, a postcrosser from Virginia, USA.

USA - Virginia - Bruton Parish Church

Fall colors surround historic Bruton Parish Church. Completed in 1715, it served our colonial leaders and is still serving the community today as one of the oldest Episcopal Churches.

Sent by Cindy, a WiP partner from Maryland, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Bruton Parish Church is located in the restored area of Colonial Williamsburg in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. It was established in 1674 in the Virginia Colony, and remains an active Episcopal parish.

The roots of Bruton Parish Church trace back to both the Church of England and the new settlement of the Colony of Virginia at Jamestown in the early 17th century. The role of the church and its relationship to the government had been established by King Henry VIII some years earlier. The same relationship was established in the new colony.

USA - Virginia - Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge

Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge
Black-eyed Susan, Fire Pink, Phlox
Bull Thistle, Turk's Cap Lily, Columbine
Great Mullein, Butterfly Weed, Flame Azalea
Small Red Morning Glory, Chicory, Trumpet Vine

Sent by Ash from Virginia, USA.

USA - Virginia/West Virginia - State Bird

Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
The state bird of 7 states, including West Virginia and Virginia.

Sent by JR from USA.

"West Virginia designated the northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) as official state bird in 1949. One of America's favorite backyard birds, cardinals are distinctive in appearance and song - known for their "cheer cheer cheer," "whit-chew whit-chew" and "purty purty purty" whistles.

Male cardinals are a brilliant scarlet red, females a buffy brown with reddish wings - both have a jet -black mask, pronounced crest, and heavy bill. The cardinal sings nearly year-round, and the male aggressively defends his 4-acre territory (male cardinals have been seen attacking small red objects mistaken as other males).

Northern cardinals breed 2-3 times each season. The female builds the nest and tends the hatchlings for about 10 days while the male brings food. The male then takes over the care of this first brood while the female moves on to a new nest and lays a second clutch of eggs.

The cardinal is the state bird of 7 states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia."(Source)

USA - Virginia - Shenandoah National Park (3)

SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
Marys Rock Tunnel
In 1932 Skyline Drive workers built Marys Rock Tunnel at Mile 32.2. The tunnel is more than 600 feet long and is now lined with concrete.

Sent by Darryl from Ohio, USA.

USA - Virginia - Shenandoah National Park (2)

SHENANDOAH NATIONAL PARK
Fall Colors
Autumn brings many visitors to the Park to see the dramatic changes in the colors of the leaves. Reds, golds, browns, and oranges in all shades are right along the Skyline Drive.

Sent by Darryl from Ohio, USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Shenandoah National Park encompasses part of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the U.S. state of Virginia. This national park is long and narrow, with the broad Shenandoah River and valley on the west side, and the rolling hills of the Virginia Piedmont on the east. Although likely the most prominent feature of the Park is the scenic Skyline Drive, almost 40% of the land area 79,579 acres (322.04 km2) has been designated as wilderness and is protected as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The highest peak is Hawksbill Mountain at 4,051 feet (1,235 m).

The park passes through parts of eight counties. On the west side of Skyline Drive they are, from northeast to southwest, Warren, Page, Rockingham, and Augusta counties. On the east side of Skyline Drive they are Rappahannock, Madison, Greene, and Albemarle counties. The park stretches for 105 miles (169 km) along Skyline Drive from near the town of Front Royal in the northeast to near the city of Waynesboro in the southwest.

Shenandoah was authorized in 1926 and fully established on December 26, 1935. Prior to being a park, much of the area was farmland and there are still remnants of old farms in several places. The Commonwealth of Virginia slowly acquired the land through eminent domain and then gave it to the U.S. Federal Government provided it would be designated a National Park.

In the creation of the park [the Skyline Drive right-of-way was purchased from owners without condemnation], a number of families and entire communities were required to vacate portions of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Many residents in the 500 homes in eight affected counties of Virginia were vehemently opposed to losing their homes and communities. Most of the families removed came from Madison County, Page County, and Rappahannock County.

Nearly 90% of the inhabitants worked the land for a living. Many worked in the apple orchards in the valley and in areas near the eastern slopes. The work to create the National Park and Skyline Drive began following a terrible drought in 1930 which destroyed the crops of many families in the area who farmed in the mountainous terrain, as well as many of the apple orchards where they worked picking crops. Nevertheless, it remains a fact that they were displaced, often against their will, and even for a very few who managed to stay, their communities were lost. A little-known fact is that, while some families were removed by force, a few others (who mostly had also become difficult to deal with) were allowed to stay after their properties were acquired, living in the park until nature took its course and they gradually died. The policy allowed the elderly and disabled who so wished to remain with life tenancy. The last to die was Annie Lee Bradley Shenk who died in 1979 at age 92. Most of the people displaced left their homes quietly. According to the Virginia Historical Society, eighty-five-year-old Hezekiah Lam explained, "I ain't so crazy about leavin' these hills but I never believed in bein' ag'in (against) the Government. I signed everythin' they asked me." The lost communities and homes were a price paid for one of the country's most beautiful National Parks and scenic roadways.

USA - Virginia - Shenandoah National Park (1)

Works Progress Administration (WPA)
Artist : Doug Leen - Brian Maebius
Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA's Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public's imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived. This contemporary design illustrates many of the WPA era posters, including those of our National Parks.

Sent by Megan, a postcrosser from USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Shenandoah National Park encompasses part of the Blue Ridge Mountains in the U.S. state of Virginia. This national park is long and narrow, with the broad Shenandoah River and valley on the west side, and the rolling hills of the Virginia Piedmont on the east. Although likely the most prominent feature of the Park is the scenic Skyline Drive, almost 40% of the land area 79,579 acres (322.04 km2) has been designated as wilderness and is protected as part of the National Wilderness Preservation System. The highest peak is Hawksbill Mountain at 4,051 feet (1,235 m).

The park passes through parts of eight counties. On the west side of Skyline Drive they are, from northeast to southwest, Warren, Page, Rockingham, and Augusta counties. On the east side of Skyline Drive they are Rappahannock, Madison, Greene, and Albemarle counties. The park stretches for 105 miles (169 km) along Skyline Drive from near the town of Front Royal in the northeast to near the city of Waynesboro in the southwest.

Shenandoah National Park lies along the Blue Ridge Mountains in north-central Virginia. These mountains form a distinct highland rising to elevations above 1,200 meters (~4,000 ft), local topographic relief between the Blue Ridge Mountains and Shenandoah Valley exceeds 1,000 meters (~3,000 ft) at some locations. The crest of the range divides the Shenandoah River drainage basin, part of the Potomac River drainage, on the west side, from the James and Rappahannock River drainage basins on the east side.

Rocks exposed in the park are among the oldest in Virginia dating to over one billion years in age. Bedrock in the park includes Grenville-age granitic basement rocks (1.2-1.0 billion years old) and a cover sequence of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic (570-550 million years old) sedimentary and volcanic rocks of the Swift Run and Catoctin formations and early Cambrian (542-520 million years old) clastic rocks of the Chilhowee Group. Quaternary surficial deposits are common and mantle much of the bedrock throughout the park.

The park is located along the western part of the Blue Ridge anticlinorium, a regional-scale Paleozoic structure at the eastern margin of the Appalachian fold and thrust belt. Rocks within the park were folded, faulted, distorted, and metamorphosed during the late Paleozoic Alleghanian Orogeny (280 to 330 million years ago). The rugged topography of Blue Ridge Mountains is a result of differential erosion during the Cenozoic, although some post-Paleozoic tectonic activity occurred in the region.

USA - Virginia - State Bird

Cardinal or Northern Cardinal.
Because of its striking beauty and its widespread habitat, teh cardinal is the official bird of seven states; Virginia, West Virginia, North carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Sent by John, a postcrosser from Virginia, USA.

"Virginia designated the northern cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) as official state bird in 1950. One of America's favorite backyard birds, cardinals are distinctive in appearance and song - known for their "cheer cheer cheer," "whit-chew whit-chew" and "purty purty purty" whistles.

Male cardinals are a brilliant scarlet red, females a buffy brown with reddish wings - both have a jet -black mask, pronounced crest, and heavy bill. The cardinal sings nearly year-round, and the male aggressively defends his 4-acre territory (male cardinals have been seen attacking small red objects mistaken as other males).

Northern cardinals breed 2-3 times each season. The female builds the nest and tends the hatchlings for about 10 days while the male brings food. The male then takes over the care of this first brood while the female moves on to a new nest and lays a second clutch of eggs.

The cardinal is the state bird of 7 states: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia"(Source)

USA - Virginia - State Flower

VIRGINIA
Dogwood - State Flower
The American dogwood is well distributed throughout the Commonwealth, and its beauty is symbolic of the many attractive features of Virginia, thus it was chosen as the official state flower. The dogwood blooms in early spring and its blossom is a tiny cluster of flowers surrounded by four white leaves that look like petals. No tree says "Southern" better than the flowering dogwood.

Sent by Mads, a postcrosser from Washinton D.C., USA.

This is from Wikipedia : Cornus florida (Flowering Dogwood, syn. Benthamidia florida (L.) Spach) is a species of dogwood native to eastern North America, from southern Maine west to southern Ontario and eastern Kansas, and south to northern Florida and eastern Texas and also in Illinois, with a disjunct population in eastern Mexico in Nuevo León and Veracruz.

Flowering dogwood is a small deciduous tree growing to 10 m (33 ft) high, often wider than it is tall when mature, with a trunk diameter of up to 30 cm (1 ft). A 10-year-old tree will stand about 5 m (16 ft) tall. The leaves are opposite, simple, ovate, 6–13 cm long and 4–6 cm broad, with an apparently entire margin (actually very finely toothed, under a lens); they turn a rich red-brown in fall.

The flowers are individually small and inconspicuous, with four greenish-yellow petals 4 mm long. Around 20 flowers are produced in a dense, rounded, umbel-shaped inflorescence, or flower-head, 1–2 cm in diameter. The flower-head is surrounded by four conspicuous large white, pink or red "petals" (actually bracts), each bract 3 cm long and 2.5 cm broad, rounded, and often with a distinct notch at the apex. The flowers are bisexual.

While most of the wild trees have white bracts, some selected cultivars of this tree also have pink bracts, some even almost a true red. They typically flower in early April in the southern part of their range, to late April or early May in northern and high altitude areas. The similar Kousa Dogwood (Cornus kousa), native to Asia, flowers about a month later.

The fruit is a cluster of two to ten drupes, each 10–15 mm long and about 8 mm wide, which ripen in the late summer and the early fall to a bright red, or occasionally yellow with a rosy blush. They are an important food source for dozens of species of birds, which then distribute the seeds.

USA - Virginia - Mapcard (2)

VIRGINIA
The Old Dominion State

Sent by Sally from Alexandria in Virginia, USA.

USA - Virginia - Mapcard (1)

VIRGINIA was named after England's Queen ELIZABETH I, the virgin queen. Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in 1607. Nicknamed : Mother of Presidents and The Old Dominion. State Song : Carry Me Back to Old Virginia. Statehood : June 25, 1788. Area : 40,815 square miles.

Sent by Micky from Arlington in Virginia, USA.

USA - Virginia - State Capitol

Designed by Thomas Jefferson, based on the style of a Roman temple in Nimes, France, construction was begun in 1785 and completed in 1792. Except for the Civil War years when Virginia was the capital of the Confederacy and this building housed the Confederate Congress, the state legislature of Virginia has met here.

Sent by Gloria, a Swap-Bot partner from Alexandria in Virginia.

USA - Virginia - Richmond

This view of Richmond shows the marvellous James River and the thriving city skyline. Founded in 1607, and identified as the state capitol in 1780. Richmond prides itself on its rich history and beautiful landmarks. Named by William Byrd II after Richmond, England on the Thames River, Richmond Virginia is a modern day American capitol city with historic significance.

This one was among many postcards sent by Barret, a friend in Swap-Bot.

Richmond /ˈrɪtʃmənd/ is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. Since 1871 it has been an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) and the Greater Richmond area. As of the 2010 census, the population was 204,214, with a population of 1,208,101 for the Richmond Metropolitan Area — making it the fourth-most populous city in Virginia.

Geographically, Richmond is located at the fall line of the James River, 44 miles (71 km) west of Williamsburg, 66 miles (106 km) east of Charlottesville, and 98 miles (158 km) south of Washington, D.C. Surrounded by Henrico and Chesterfield counties, the city is located at the intersections of Interstate 95 and Interstate 64, and encircled by Interstate 295 and Virginia State Route 288. (read further)

USA - Virginia - Jefferson Davis Monument

The Jefferson Davis Monument is a unique and stately arrangement of 13 Doric columns representing the 11 seceding states and the 12 states that contributed representatives to the Confederate Congress. Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy is the central figure. Jefferson Davis was also a Mexican War hero, served in the House of Representatives and the Senate, and was secretary of war under Franklin Pierce. After the Civil War he became a symbol of the Lost Cause.

Sent by Barret of Richmond, Virginia.

This is from Wikipedia : Jefferson Finis Davis (June 3, 1808 – December 6, 1889) was an American military officer, statesman and leader of the Confederacy during the American Civil War, serving as the president of the Confederate States of America for its entire history, 1861 to 1865.

A West Point graduate, Davis fought in the Mexican-American War as a colonel of a volunteer regiment, and was the United States secretary of war under Pres. Franklin Pierce. Both before and after his time in the Pierce Administration, he served as a U.S. senator representing the State of Mississippi. As a senator he argued against secession, but believed each state was sovereign and had an unquestionable right to secede from the Union.

Davis resigned from the Senate in January 1861 after receiving word that Mississippi had seceded from the Union. The following month, he was provisionally appointed president of the Confederate States of America and was elected to a six-year term that November. During his presidency, Davis was not able to find a strategy to defeat the more industrially-developed Union, even though the South only lost roughly one soldier for every two Union soldiers on the battlefield.

After Davis was captured May 10, 1865, he was charged with treason, though not tried, and stripped of his eligibility to run for public office. This limitation was posthumously removed by order of Congress and President Jimmy Carter in 1978, 89 years after his death. While not disgraced, he was displaced in Southern affection after the war by its leading general, Robert E. Lee.

USA - Virginia - Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville

The University of Virginia's Rotunda was built as Thomas Jefferson's center of the "academical village". Modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, it was completed in 1826 at a cost of nearly $60,000. Formerly used as a library for more than a century, today it represents a central focal point on campus and a popular gathering place for visitors and students.

It's also worth mentioning that it is the only university in the United States to be designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO, an honor it shares with nearby Monticello.

Sent by Barret who lives in Richmond, Virginia.

Monticello and the University of Virginia are directly and materially associated with the ideals of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), better known for his political career, the brilliance of which overshadowed his reputation as a writer and architect. These works of perfection, where the difficult passage from Utopia to reality is harmoniously achieved, are directly inspired by the very same principles which led to Jefferson's Declaration of Independence (1776) and his project for the abolition of slavery (1800).

The integration of the buildings into the natural landscape, the originality of the plan and design, and the refined proportions and decor make Monticello an outstanding example of a neoclassical work of art, while the University of Virginia is an outstanding example of a great educational institution from the Age of Enlightenment.

The two major works of Thomas Jefferson in Charlottesville are Monticello and the University of Virginia. Monticello (1769-1809) is a perfect example of a neoclassical villa rustica, based on a Roman design, revised by Palladio and amended by the Physiocrats. The University of Virginia is a fine example of the architectural ideal of the Age of Enlightenment put to use in the great educational programme of the third President of the United States.

Construction of Monticello began in 1769. The very personal conception of the house clearly shows the various influences experienced by its designer: that of Palladio, evidencing in the perfect proportions of the pedimented porticos, and that of the contemporary neoclassical architecture. The interior spatial organization and the low elevation were borrowed from contemporary Parisian town house design. The western facade is dominated by an octagonal dome. Only the harmonious volume of the villa emerges from the foliage of the park where, towards the end of his life, Jefferson planted orchards, vegetable and flower gardens.

Jefferson's most ambitious and last architectural undertaking was the construction of the University of Virginia. Elaborating this project, which is based on educational ideals that are both encyclopaedic and democratic, he departed from pre-existing British or American college planning schemes. The rational layout of this 'academic village' is inspired both by the principles of hygiene laid down by the hospital builders and by a symbolic architecture expressed by the hierarchy of volumes and the repertory of forms.

A half-scale copy of the Pantheon in Rome, which houses the library, dominates the academic village. The 10 pavilions housing the professors of the 10 schools that make up the university are deliberately based on a distinctive design and are intended to serve as an encyclopaedia of classical and neoclassical architectural designs. However, the connecting colonnades serve to give a feeling of unity to this space. The later construction of a building at the south end has unnecessarily transformed this triumphal way into an enclosed space. (Source)