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Winchester Tales, Winchester, VA (2025)

08/06/2025

At the corner of Stewart and Boscawen Streets once stood the Wi******er Medical College, founded in 1826. Though the building is gone, its legacy lives on in the physicians it trained and the lives they touched. At its center was Dr. Hugh Holmes McGuire, a gifted teacher and visionary who devoted his life to medical education. Under his leadership, the college thrived, equipped with a surgical amphitheater, a dissection room, a chemical lab, and a medical museum.

One of Dr. McGuire’s most promising students was Dr. John T. Huff, a young man known for his steady hands and sharp mind. McGuire once called him the finest surgeon Virginia had produced. When the Civil War began, Dr. Huff joined the Confederate army as a surgeon. His skill was quickly put to the test at the Battle of Philippi—considered the first land battle of the war—where a wounded soldier named Captain Fauntleroy Daingerfield lay bleeding with a shattered leg. It would need to be amputated.

With his medical kit captured by Union forces, Dr. Huff had nothing but a butcher’s saw to perform the operation. Using that crude tool, he performed the first amputation of the Civil War.

The Wi******er Medical College story ended in tragedy. In May 1862, Union soldiers occupying Wi******er discovered the dissected body of Watson Brown—son of abolitionist John Brown—on display in the school’s museum. Outraged, they burned the building to the ground. All records, instruments, and anatomical collections were lost. Fire engines were reportedly blocked from saving the structure. The Wi******er Medical College never reopened.

08/06/2025

The name Simeon in Hebrew means “he has heard” or “to hear,” and Simeon Hillman lived up to that name in more ways than one. He was known for his keen hearing at his tollgate—exceptional, some said—and he could hear the creak of the wagon or the clip-clop of the horse's hooves - a mile away some say. His wife, Charlotte, was fiery, sharp-witted, and tough as nails. Folks around Wi******er simply called her Lottie. Together, they made a formidable pair.

In 1840, Simeon and Lottie began their long service as tollkeepers at the little white tollhouse that once stood at the northwest corner of Valley Avenue and Cedar Creek Grade. For twenty years, they kept watch over the gate, collecting tolls and witnessing the passing of countless wagons, travelers, and tales. When Simeon passed away in 1860, Lottie didn’t miss a step. She took over the tollhouse entirely and remained its keeper until her death in 1892—more than half a century of dedication to her post.

Before the tollhouse chapter of their lives, Simeon and Lottie lived at 211 South Kent Street in a home Charlotte had inherited from her father, John Copenhaver. When Simeon died, the house was sold, marking the end of one era and the quiet persistence of another. But Simeon’s story stretches further back—he was a Marine during the War of 1812, serving under Commodore Daniel T. Patterson during the pivotal Battle of New Orleans. There, in the thick of the fight, Simeon suffered a grievous wound to his left arm and was taken prisoner aboard a British vessel. A Royal Navy surgeon insisted the arm must be amputated to save his life. Simeon refused. “If I die, sir,” he said firmly, “my arm shall go with my body.” He survived—and carried both arm and honor for the rest of his days.

For his wartime service, Simeon received a government pension, and his reputation in Wi******er as a war hero was well earned. When he died at the tollhouse, the town mourned him deeply. His funeral procession was a grand and solemn affair: The Continental Morgan Guard, the Wi******er Rifles, and the Marion Riflemen, all marched in full uniform. They escorted the casket from the tollhouse to Mount Hebron Cemetery, pausing at the Lutheran Church, where Captain Funk offered a stirring tribute to the man who had given so much in both war and peace.

Simeon Hillman died in 1860, just before the Civil War came crashing into Wi******er, scattering families and leveling homes. But Charlotte endured. Through years of uncertainty and upheaval, she stood guard at the gate—resolute, unshaken, and ever watchful.

When General Philip Sheridan’s Union army came down the Valley Pike in 1864, Charlotte stepped into the road and demanded the toll. Undaunted by the hundreds of men passing through, she kept count—carving a notch in her stick for every 100 soldiers. The army passed through, the war ended, and—true to their word—the bill was eventually paid by the federal government.

* The photo below of Hillman's Tollgate was taken around the turn of the century...it ran until 1918. This is a view on Valley Avenue looking north...with Cedar Creek Grade going to the left. For today's perspective, Burger King would be to the right of the man sitting in the carriage.

08/05/2025

During the harsh winter of 1863–1864, Captain H.L. Karr of the 116th Ohio Volunteer Infantry was stationed in Wi******er. There, he came to know a Southern woman of uncommon grace and courage—Mrs. Funk, who lived on the corner of South Cameron and Monmouth Streets.

Though her own sons served in the Confederate army—one a colonel, the other a captain—Mrs. Funk made it clear to Captain Karr that she stood not with one side or the other, but with suffering humanity. On one occasion she told him plainly, “Captain, if you shall be taken sick, or wounded in the evil fortunes of war—for all its fortunes are evil—come to me, and I will nurse you and take care of you. If you have sick or wounded men, bring them to me, and I will take care of them. I am a mother.”

Months passed and the Third Battle of Wi******er began on September 19, 1864. It was one of the bloodiest fights in the Shenandoah Valley. After the battle, Captain Karr found himself again near Mrs. Funk’s home. He saw her standing at her gate.

“I was looking for you,” she said. “I knew I should see you.”

She invited him inside. There, stretched on a bed and pale from loss of blood, lay her son—Colonel John Henry Stover Funk. He had been wounded in the day’s battle near the Hackwood house.

Mrs. Funk tried to introduce them but broke into tears. Her son, weakened but composed, spoke instead.

“Captain, I feel almost acquainted with you. My mother has spoken of you often. If you can, please help me stay here in my home. If I recover, I will be grateful. But if I must die, I’d rather die in my mother’s house. I am Colonel Funk, the last commander of the Stonewall Brigade.”

Without hesitation, Captain Karr pulled out his diary, tore out a blank page, and wrote out a parole—an informal pass allowing Colonel Funk to remain in Wi******er. He signed it under his title as Provost Marshal and hoped it would be honored. Colonel Funk thanked him with quiet sincerity.

Later that day, Captain Karr reported what he had done to Colonel George D. Wells, his commanding officer. Wells said simply, “All right, Captain. Your parole will be respected.

But the wound proved mortal. Colonel Funk died in his own childhood bed not long after and was buried in Wi******er’s Mount Hebron Cemetery. A Union soldier named Elijah Hunt Rhodes, walking through the cemetery that day, recorded in his diary, “I happened upon the service of a Confederate officer named Colonel Funk. Never have I seen such mourning and such sorrow by so many. This man must have been very loved and revered.”

Mrs. Funk’s younger son, Billy, was captured and later died of disease at Fort Delaware. His body was returned to Wi******er and buried beside his brother.

The old Funk house was torn down in the early 1900s. But the story of Mrs. Funk and her sons remains—etched in the memories of those who passed through her doors, and in the quiet rows of Mount Hebron Cemetery, where two brothers rest side by side…near their mother.

08/05/2025

On a quiet farm nestled along the banks of Cedar Creek in the Marlboro area of Frederick County, a tragedy unfolded in the spring of 1791 that would echo through the annals of medical history.

Nineteen-year-old Isaac Zoll was splitting wood on the family land when his axe slipped, catching his foot. It was a painful injury, but not one that should have been fatal. Yet as his family tried desperately to stop the bleeding, nothing worked. When they bound the wound, blood gushed instead from his mouth and nose. With each passing hour, they watched in helpless horror as Isaac slowly bled to death. He died on March 22, 1791.

That single incident would have been haunting enough—but it did not end there.

One by one, four of Isaac’s brothers would also die in eerily similar ways. One from the prick of a thorn. Another from a scratch by a curry comb. A third fell victim to the smallest of wounds from a sewing needle, and the fourth from a simple cut on the wrist. Minor injuries that should have healed instead ended in death. Something strange, something devastating, was happening in the Zoll family.

170 years passed before the mystery began to make sense.

In 1962, Dr. Victor McKusick, a pioneering geneticist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, examined the case in a landmark hematology article. He identified Isaac Zoll’s death as the earliest known record of hemophilia in America. His research caught the attention of other physicians, and in 1975, Dr. Paul Didisheim affirmed McKusick’s findings in the Rochester Medical Journal, stating clearly: “The Zoll case is indeed the first report of hemophilia in the United States.”

The pattern of the brothers’ deaths aligned perfectly with what scientists now understand as X-linked recessive inheritance—a trait passed from mother to son. Intriguingly, all five sons who died of bleeding complications were born to Mr. Zoll’s first wife, who herself died during childbirth, never knowing that she had passed along a genetic condition that science wouldn’t even name for another century.

The story of the Zoll family—painful, perplexing, and profound—remains not only a footnote in American medical history but a powerful testament to the hidden legacies carried silently through generations. What began as an unexplained family tragedy on a farm in Marlboro became the foundation for a deeper understanding of a rare and devastating disorder.

08/05/2025

In the fall of 1862, British Army officer Garnet Wolseley arrived in Baltimore. At the time, he was a rising figure in the British military—later known as Field Marshal Lord Wolseley, and often regarded as the most capable British general of the 19th century after Wellington. His purpose in coming to the United States was to observe the American Civil War firsthand. He wanted to study how a modern revolution unfolded—militarily, socially, and politically.

While in Baltimore, Wolseley met Mary Greenhow Lee. The two became friends, and when Wolseley expressed interest in witnessing the war more closely, Mrs. Lee invited him to Wi******er. Through discreet arrangements and bribes, Wolseley made his way to the Shenandoah Valley and arrived in Wi******er in early October 1862.

He stayed at Mrs. Lee’s home on North Cameron Street, located roughly where the back parking lot of the George Washington Hotel stands today. While there, news arrived that General Robert E. Lee’s army was camped near Brucetown following the recent Battle of Antietam. Wolseley arranged to travel to the Confederate camp and was granted an audience with General Lee.

The meeting left a strong impression. The two men discussed war, the Southern cause, the idea of secession, and the broader implications of the conflict. In his later writings, Wolseley remarked:

“I have met many of the great men of my time, but Robert E. Lee alone impressed me with the feeling that I was in the presence of a finer metal than all other men.”

In March 1887, Wolseley published an article in Macmillan’s Magazine, where he reflected on his visit. He made it clear that he neither defended nor attacked the Confederacy. Instead, his goal had been to observe a civil war in progress. He described it as America’s Second Revolutionary War, and believed it held valuable lessons for the study of modern warfare.

08/04/2025

She became a Washington by marriage, and when Mrs. Anna Spotswood Buchanan Washington—known affectionately as “Nannie” to her friends—passed away at her home in Washington, D.C., her final wish was to return to Wi******er, to rest in Mount Hebron Cemetery.

Nannie was the devoted wife of Colonel Burwell Bassett Washington of Waverly, the distinguished home nestled in Clearbrook, Virginia. On a warm afternoon, with the windows open along Boscawen Street, her will was read aloud at Rouss City Hall by Congressman Thomas W. Harrison.

"After my debts have been paid, I wish to be buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery in the city.” Her will continued with gifts that reflected a life steeped in both personal affection and national heritage. Pieces of jewelry were left to dear friends. To her loyal friend and maid, Le Quan, she bequeathed her husband’s watch. A gold signet ring, once worn by Revolutionary War General Otho H. Williams, was willed to the National Museum in Washington, D.C.

Perhaps most remarkable was the gift of a miniature portrait of General George Washington, painted from life, which she left for Lawrence Washington Jr. To Miss Mary Spotswood Buchanan of Wi******er, her dear sister, she left a cherished locket containing strands of General George Washington’s hair. And the most interesting relic left by nannie Washington was General Washington's camp bed—the folding bedstead that had accompanied the general throughout the Revolutionary War. For many years, this bed sat quietly in a bedroom at Waverly. The bed was passed down to Matthew Burwell Washington after John Augustine Washington III sold Mount Vernon in 1858. Nannie’s final request was for her sister Mary to see that the bed was delivered to Mount Vernon, so that all the world might enjoy it.

In the end, Mrs. Anna “Nannie” Washington was laid to rest beside her beloved husband in Lot 20, Grave 7, at Mount Hebron Cemetery. It is humbling to imagine that, for so many quiet years, a bed used by George Washington during the trials of war, and the birth of our nation, stood just a few miles from Wi******er...a silent sentinel of history...tucked away in a Clearbrook bedroom.

08/04/2025

Wi******er will be highlighted in this movie…it’s from Angel Studios, the company who made the movie “Sound of Freedom”…I have high hopes as they are not mainstream Hollywood.

08/03/2025

Little James Walker Caldwell looked up with eager eyes. “Tell me the story again, Grandpa. About the sword.”

The old man smiled, a trace of pride in his voice. “I’ll do better than that, my dear boy.”

General James A. Walker, once a commander of the famed Stonewall Brigade, rose from his chair…and took the sword off the wall. Carefully, he slid the blade from its scabbard.

“This,” he said, “is the sword I carried through much of the war. But it did not begin with me. It once belonged to Colonel Wilson of the 123rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry. His officers presented it to him in recognition of his leadership, and the inscription on the blade bears witness to that honor. It came into my hands during the Second Battle of Wi******er. And here is my story…”

It was June 1863. General Ewell’s Corps was advancing near Wi******er, where we met Federal forces under Major General Robert Milroy. After a sharp and bitter engagement, Milroy withdrew into his fortifications. That night, he attempted to retreat east toward Harpers Ferry, abandoning his artillery and stores. But General Ewell anticipated the move and ordered General Edward Johnson’s division to make a forced march around Jordan Springs to cut off the retreat near Stephenson’s Depot.

The Stonewall Brigade, which I then had the honor to command, was the rear brigade in Johnson’s column. We marched briskly through the night, and just as dawn broke near Jordan Springs—about a mile from the turnpike—we heard the crack of musket fire. Johnson’s leading brigade had struck Milroy’s column, and the fighting began.

As the sound of cannon and rifle fire grew, our brigade closed ranks and moved at the double-quick to the front. In thick morning fog, we took our position on the right flank and engaged the enemy. We drove them back half a mile before they raised the white flag.

I rode forward with my staff to accept their surrender. There, I met Colonel Ely of Connecticut, who turned over his command. We captured over 800 men, their arms, equipment, and six regimental flags. Among the officers taken was Colonel Wilson, who surrendered this very sword to me.

It was new then—bright and finely made. A beautiful weapon. I carried it from that day forward, through two long years of sunshine and storm, triumph and hardship. And now—” The general paused, placing the sword into his grandson’s hands. “Now…it is yours.”

08/03/2025

Wi******er’s first museum wasn’t a formal institution—it was the home of Charles J.J. VonWitt at 25 West Cork Street. In the early 1900s, long before there were public galleries or historical centers in town, locals knew they could knock on his door and step into a room full of Wi******er’s past.

Born in Germany in 1863, VonWitt came to the United States and eventually made Wi******er his home. He worked as the desk clerk at the Hotel Evans on Piccadilly Street, but it was his passion for local history that earned him the nickname “Doctor VonWitt.” He wasn’t a physician, but people called him “doctor” out of respect for his encyclopedic knowledge of the Civil War, the colonial era, and the relics of both.

His home doubled as a private museum. There was no admission fee—just a knock on the door. Inside, visitors might find artifacts from George Washington’s time in Wi******er, Civil War bullets and buckles, or even the spinning wheel from Godfrey Miller’s old weaver’s shop. Local farmers often brought in items they found while working their fields, and families settling estates thought of VonWitt when they came across historical objects they didn’t want to discard. Everything was cataloged and cared for in his small but well-known collection.

VonWitt had a thick German accent and a precise memory. He could trace troop movements across the Shenandoah Valley and explain the background of nearly any local relic. He was a charter member of the local Order of Owls and also active in the Friendship Fire Company. When its bell rang in June 1923, it tolled in his memory.

In his final years, he suffered a series of serious falls. He once broke both arms and legs falling down the steps of the Cumberland Valley Telephone Company on North Loudoun Street. Another fall at his home in June 1923 broke his hip, and he never recovered. He died later that month.

Before his death, VonWitt asked to be cremated and placed in one of his own collectible boxes—a final gesture true to his lifelong devotion to history. His home, once filled with stories and relics, stood approximately where the 50/50 Taphouse stands today on Cork Street. His passion for preserving Wi******er’s past helped inspire the generations that followed....like me!

08/03/2025

He was a son of Clarke County—raised among its farms and fields, and like many young men of his time, Thomas J. Russell answered the call when war broke out in 1861. He enlisted with the Clarke Cavalry, joining the Confederate cause at the very beginning. Throughout the early years of the war, he survived numerous battles, many of them brutal. But on June 9, 1863, his good fortune ended at the Battle of Brandy Station—the largest cavalry engagement ever fought on American soil.

As Russell rode with his unit over a rise, he was met with the sudden and chaotic sight of battle unfolding below. Union cavalry burst from the tree line, and gunfire broke out almost immediately. Pistols cracked, and bullets cut through the air. One shot struck Russell just below the eye, driving into his cheekbone and penetrating his brain. He fell from his horse, unconscious. His fellow cavalrymen assumed he was beyond saving. With no time to spare, they left him behind on the field.

Sometime later, Russell awoke in the back of a wagon full of wounded Confederate prisoners. He was taken to a hospital in Alexandria, where Union doctors examined him closely. His case baffled them. Though shot through the head, Russell was fully conscious, aware, and able to speak. “By all accounts, this man should be dead,” one surgeon wrote. The bullet had passed dangerously close to vital structures but had spared his sight. Attempting to remove it was too risky. The ball was left lodged deep in his brain.

The war was over for Lieutenant Russell. He was eventually released and returned home to Berryville. He tried to rebuild a life from what remained. His family’s farm had been heavily damaged, but he worked it as best he could. Over the years, the effects of his injury became more apparent. He experienced seizures, sudden blackouts, and intense, unexplained fits of laughter. Doctors believed that a fragment of bone or the pressure of the embedded bullet was irritating part of his brain, causing the episodes.

In his final year, Russell suffered several strokes that left him paralyzed. He died on May 24, 1902, nearly forty years after the wound that should have ended his life.

08/03/2025

Lieutenant John S. Russell left the village of Paris early in the morning carrying a letter from Colonel John S. Mosby addressed to General Philip Sheridan in Wi******er. The mission was dangerous. General Custer had recently issued an order that any Mosby Ranger captured would be executed. Still, Russell had been tasked with delivering the letter personally.

The letter was part of a tense exchange between Mosby and Custer. About a month earlier, Mosby’s men had attacked a Union wagon train near Front Royal, unaware it contained ambulances with wounded soldiers. Custer responded by hanging several of Mosby’s captured men in Front Royal. In retaliation, Mosby hanged a group of Custer’s men from a tree on Grindstone Hill near Berryville. Later, Mosby captured 100 more Federal soldiers but hesitated to continue the cycle of ex*****ons. Instead, he wrote to General Sheridan seeking resolution.

Russell approached the first Union picket line east of Opequon Creek waving a white handkerchief. He was taken by Custer’s men and brought before Custer himself, who ordered his ex*****on. Russell told him he carried a letter for General Sheridan and had been instructed to deliver it personally. Custer demanded the letter, but Russell refused, saying it could only be taken from his dead body. After some discussion, Custer agreed to send Russell to Sheridan.

Blindfolded, Russell was escorted to Wi******er. At the Provost Marshal’s office, he again refused to hand over the letter. He was then taken to General Sheridan at the Logan House on Braddock Street. Sheridan read the letter, closed the door, and told Russell he had carried out his duty well. He then contacted General Grant, received a reply, and wrote a letter back to Mosby.

Russell was escorted by Union cavalry through Berryville and returned to Mosby with Sheridan’s response. The 100 Federal prisoners were spared. The exchange marked a turning point in efforts to end retaliatory ex*****ons between the two sides.

08/02/2025

In 1863, near Harrisonburg, Virginia, James Kennan—father-in-law to the future philanthropist Charles B. Rouss—passed away with a final request: that he be laid to rest in Mount Hebron Cemetery in Wi******er. It was a time of uncertainty and danger, as the Civil War raged across the Shenandoah Valley. The family, grief-stricken, made every effort to fulfill his wish, but no man dared undertake the 69-mile journey through a landscape scarred by conflict.

No man would —but one boy did. Fourteen-year-old W.H. Magalis stepped forward. He had a reason of his own: a grandmother in Wi******er he longed to see. With solemn determination, young Magalis helped load Mr. Kennan’s body into a pine coffin, placed it in a one-horse wagon, and began his lonely journey northward.

Near Lacey Springs, a violent storm descended—rain, thunder, hail. Seeking refuge, the boy crawled beneath the wagon. Moments later, a woman on horseback rode up and joined him under the scant shelter. They sat silently through the storm, huddled side by side. As the clouds lifted and the thunder faded, the woman broke the quiet and asked gently, “What have you in your wagon?” Without hesitation, the boy simply replied, “A corpse.”

The boy pressed on. He reached New Market by nightfall and stayed at McQuaide’s Hotel. At dawn, he resumed his journey. In Strasburg, Union cavalry halted him. Suspicion ran high—he was a lone youth in a war zone, pulling a closed wagon. Accused of being a spy, Magalis quietly unlatched the box. One glimpse of the solemn contents silenced the soldiers. They let him pass.

As he neared Kernstown, Confederate soldiers intercepted him, took custody of the wagon, and escorted him the final three miles into Wi******er. There, the Kennan family received the body with gratitude and reverence. W.H. Magalis, exhausted and unshaken, found his grandmother’s home and spent a restful night in peace.

Nearly four decades later, in 1902, Charles B. Rouss—then a wealthy businessman in New York—published an appeal in the Valley newspapers. He wished to learn the identity of the person who had brought his father-in-law’s body home during the war. In Roanoke, an aging W.H. Magalis read the notice. He wrote to Rouss, recounting the journey, the storm, and the encounters with soldiers on blue and gray.

Charles Rouss replied:

“Dear sir, I do remember your father and your family. Enclosed is a check for your trouble. Most of my family died long ago. I used to go to Wi******er once a year, but have not been there lately—and will never go there again until the last time.
With best wishes,
C.B. Rouss”

Charles Broadway Rouss was correct…he would return to Wi******er one last time. He passed away only three months after this letter was written.

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