THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 15, 1995 TAG: 9503140121
SECTION: ISLE OF WIGHT CITIZEN PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY LINDA McNATT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLAREMONT LENGTH: Long : 230 lines
LERNER AND LOEWE in 1947 told the musical story of ``Brigadoon,'' a Scottish village that disappeared in 1747 and comes to life again every 100 years.
It doesn't take Claremont quite that long to rise up.
And actually, this village on the James River in Surry County never truly disappears.
It simply shrinks - from a population of more than 800, including well-to-do city folks who occupy beach cottages in the summer, to one of less than 400 very ordinary citizens in the winter.
And while the citizens of Claremont, tucked away at the end of an elbow-turn off Virginia Route 10, may admit to being ordinary, they are quick to tell you that nothing about their town has ever been that way.
Claremont, they say, has always been unique: from its ties to Edgar Allan Poe in his finest hour to its Civil War contribution that helped build the ironclad vessel Merrimack, and from its private Catholic school in the 1960s run by an order of Felician nuns to its college for African Americans, Smallwood Institute, which closed in 1928 but managed to educate more than 2,000 students.
Claremont always has been different.
And nice.
Yes, nice. And peaceful, quiet, safe. That's what Claremont's citizens say.
``Why, this is the safest place in the world to live,'' says a former mayor, 83-year-old Georgie Strickland, a lifelong resident who still volunteers at a Hopewell nursing home. ``I've seen some great changes in this town. Some of them I don't like. But it's a nice town. I love it.''
Most people who live there do.
When Strickland was a girl, the town boasted two large general stores, its own newspaper, an undertaker with a large selection of coffins, an ice cream parlor, a drug store.
Today, two small convenience stores are the only sign of thriving business.
There is also the fossil museum, run by a retired minister in a rundown trailer on the main road into town, and the library, run by volunteers in what once was a bookmobile.
But Mayor Victor Lenox, who settled in town not quite three years ago with his wife, Helen Gwaltney Lenox, likes it just the way it is.
``When my wife got ready to retire, she said, `Well, what will it be? Virginia or Pennsylvania?' '' recalls Lenox, a 72-year-old native of the Keystone State. ``And I said, `I've shoveled enough snow.' We have decided this will be our home.''
And as he was accustomed to doing in his home state, where he was mayor of a much larger town for several years, Lenox got involved.
``I ran for mayor last year. Took office in July. There's a lot to do in this town. We have the same business as any larger place.''
It wasn't the salary that attracted Lenox to the post. He gets $10 a month. Five council members are paid $5 a month. A part-time clerk works two half-days a week in Town Hall, once a bank.
The town has an annual budget of $32,000 and operates a separate, $60,000 budget for the Water Department.
``The Water Department is richer than the town,'' the mayor says, chuckling.
What is lacking in funds is made up for in history.
According to the history written to celebrate the town's 1986 centennial, Claremont could have been Jamestown. The first English colonists who settled in Virginia explored Claremont's high, vine-covered bluffs when they searched for a permanent settlement.
They were greeted by the Quioughcohanoch tribe, and a granite monument in the town's only traffic circle, in front of town hall, commemorates the event.
But Claremont was passed over because the bluffs - which made the small town so attractive in later years to city dwellers seeking summer solitude - prevented English ships from getting close enough to the shoreline to maintain defenses.
Still, two prominent early Virginia families founded successful plantations in the Claremont area. Benjamin Harrison's estate was known as Wakefield. It was destroyed by Benedict Arnold during the Revolutionary War, says Michael Harrison, a Claremont resident who wrote the history.
After that, most of Harrison's holdings were bought by the Allen family, descending from Arthur Allen of Bacon's Castle in Surry. And it was that family, Michael Harrison says, that orchestrated the rise of Claremont to its greatest potential just after the Civil War.
``Allen ended up with most of the property,'' he says. ``It extended beyond the town, out toward Route 10. He built his own railroad, and there was a wharf, where lumber was shipped out.''
The fourth William Allen of Claremont was very dedicated to the Southern cause. When an appeal was made for donations of iron to build the Merrimack, Allen pulled up his railroad tracks and sent the rails to Richmond to be rolled into iron plates for the vessel.
The Allens may or may not have been the same Richmond family that adopted Edgar Allan Poe, son of traveling actors, but legend has it they were. There seems to be no explanation, however, for the difference in the spelling of the name.
``We know Poe visited Claremont Manor after he started writing, and the legend is that he was working on `The Raven' at the time,'' Michael Harrison says.
At Claremont Academy, when the manor became a Catholic school, that information was treated more as fact, says A.G. Harrison Jr., who was one of just a handful of black students who attended.
``We always heard he wrote `The Raven' there,'' he recalled. ``It was something we were taught to be proud of.''
A.G. Harrison, who now lives in Surry and works at a Peninsula restaurant, went to the school run by nuns from New Jersey from the fourth through the eighth grade. The school was opened during a time when schools in Virginia were heading toward integration and there were two private, segregated schools in Surry and Sussex counties.
An appeal went out to prominent black families in the area because the nuns, and the Catholic Church, wanted their school to be integrated.
``Socially, it was hard at times,'' A.G. Harrison says. ``But I think I benefited academically. It was a very positive experience.''
The Allen family's influence affected the town's growth after the Civil War because of their social connections in the North, Michael Harrison says. When the Allens began to sell off their land, many of the buyers were Yankees seeking riches in the South.
Maybe that explains why the town's cemetery, on a secluded bluff overlooking the river, has a special section set aside for Northern soldiers and a monument dedicated to the Army of the Republic.
At one time, the town's population numbered more than a thousand. But as road overtook river transportation, the population declined and businesses died.
Today, about the most exciting thing that happens in town is when the summer folks move in and some of their teenagers race down the streets at 60 mph, Lenox says. Otherwise, crime is almost non-existent.
``Ain't nobody gonna bother me here,'' says Florence Fisher, who used to mow the grass at Town Hall until she couldn't do it anymore.
Oh, and there's the dog ordinance. That was pretty exciting, the mayor says. The council haggled for months over what kind of ordinance to pass. Finally, they just asked everybody to cooperate and not to let their dogs roam the streets. It seems to have worked.
Or the new colt born recently at the horse farm just outside of town.
``The whole town knows about it,'' Lenox says. ``My wife and I ride out there to look at it every other day or so.''
For many of the newer residents, Claremont is a place to escape city life. Most of them, those who aren't retired, work in Hopewell, Newport News, Petersburg and other nearby cities.
``Claremont isn't a place you simply pass through,'' says Christin Parks, a retired ballet teacher who moved from Hopewell and is a member of the Town Council. ``You have got to be coming here.''
Rebecca Narran's husband discovered Claremont by water, when he was fishing in the James one day. He pulled into shore, and before the next day was over, he was buying a trailer, one of about 40 summer places on the beach.
Narran's mother later moved to Claremont. Like her daughter and son-in-law, she first bought a beach trailer, then a home in town. The Narrans' son, Dewain, built a home on the beach road. He's now the Town Council's youngest member.
``We fell in love with the town and the people,'' Rebecca Narran says. ``We sold our home in Hopewell, bought a home in town, and we can walk to our summer home. I can get out with the grandchildren and wander all over the place.''
The town has an active Ruritan Club, five churches, a garden club started by the mayor's wife, the Argus Woman's Club, Friends of the Library and a tiny public beach with one picnic table.
And Claremont has its share of eccentric millionaires, one of whom throws a big party every summer and invites the whole town. Not everybody goes.
The best-known of the millionaires is the most reclusive. James Curtis Kirby and his family, heirs to the F.W. Woolworth fortune, live behind the walls at Claremont Manor. They are seldom seen.
Attorneys represented the family a couple of years ago in a legal battle with the town, when the Kirbys wanted to close a road to the beach that ran through their property.
``The town spent over $80,000,'' Lenox says. ``The town's broke, and the Kirbys aren't.''
Parks says the battle left a bad taste in everybody's mouths.
``When the sisters were there, it was opened to everybody year around,'' she says. ``Now, I think the town's people feel they are shut off from their history. I think that has as much to do with the bad feelings as anything.''
And James Kirby has been buying up land around the plantation, offering twice what it's worth. Some people don't like that either, Parks says.
On the other hand, the Kirbys have done a lot for the small Episcopal Church, a modest, white, wooden building with Gothic overtones, trimmed in bright blue.
``Mrs. Kirby attends when she's in town,'' says Barbara Anderson, wife of a retired Navy captain. ``They gave the organ, some of the windows. They've been very good to us.''
Lenox says he wishes it were different. He wishes the whole town could work together, but he accepts that feelings have been hurt.
A lot has happened since Lenox took over as mayor. A new well has been drilled. The garden club is building a park on a vacant lot across from Town Hall. And, finally, the town has convinced the Surry County Board of Supervisors to fund a real building for the library, which circulates about 100 books a week in the winter, double that in the summer.
``We have videos, audio tapes - anything a full-sized library has,'' volunteer clerk Rose Marie Curling says proudly. ``And we can get any book in the state of Virginia.''
And the mayor is planning Claremont Day, scheduled for May 6. It's spearheaded by the Ruritans and the garden club. The mayor hopes to see craft, food and yard sales, and he hopes to see neighbors and friends working together.
Frankly, he has enough to do, Lenox says.
``A lady called me just this morning from New England. She's a writer. She wants to buy or rent property here, wants to get away from the hubbub. As mayor here, you can dabble in just about anything.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Cover]
LIFE IN THE SLOW LANE
QUIET CLAREMONT
[Color Photo]
Staff photo by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
A lot has happened since Victor Lenox became mayor. A new well has
been drilled. The garden club is building a park. And, funds are
forthcoming for a real library building.
Florence Fisher checks in books at the library.
A stationary bookmobile serves as the library.
At City Hall, a homemade box solicits comments.
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
Town Hall is housed in what was once a bank. The town has an annual
budget of $32,000.
English settlers were greeted by the Quioughcohanoch tribe.
STAFF Map
Staff photos by JOHN H. SHEALLY II
James Kirby and his family, heirs to the F.W. Woolworth fortune,
have done a lot for the Episcopal Church, a modest, white, wooden
building.
Curling
by CNB