Service

Historic Cemeteries

I've been enthusiastically involved in several community efforts to make historic cemeteries more accessible by removing brush and weeds. Students and volunteers dedicated many hours clearing overgrowth from the McDowell Cemetery near Fairfield (Rockbridge County, Virginia). This cemetery contains some of the oldest settler burials in the region (ca. 1740s).

I've also appreciated opportunities to share my research on cemeteries with community organizations, and I'm grateful for fellowships from Virginia Humanities and Washington and Lee that enabled me to do this work. 

Click here for photos of the McDowell Cemetery.

Click here for media coverage of "Preserving Historic Cemeteries."

for "Continuing Connections between the Living and the Dead."

for Asbury Methodist Church Cemetery.

for "Front Porches of the Dead"

The Many Stories of Main Street

In the spring of 2017, students in my spring-term class partnered with Historic Lexington Foundation, First Baptist Church, and the Main Street Lexington Foundation to create and host a walking tour of Lexington's Main Street, between Washington and Henry Streets. This area was a thriving hub of successful African American businesses from the late nineteenth into the mid-twentieth centuries. Students and volunteers shared interactive, hands-on activities at six stops to educate and encourage reflection on this history.

Image: Walker & Wood Bros. Store, WLU Coll 0294 - Walker-Wood Family Papers, 1798-2019,  Special Collections and Archives, James G. Leyburn Library, Washington and Lee University. 

"Miss Jane"

In December of 2008, construction of a parking lot for the new Rockbridge County Courthouse in Lexington revealed a set of human remains. Police contacted forensic scientists at Radford University, who examined the bones and site. They recorded a “gray stain” in the wet clay; no coffin hardware or personal items were recovered, making it likely that this person had been buried in a cloth shroud. They determined that the remains were those of a woman, likely between 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 9 inches tall, between 17 and 23 years of age, and African American.

The site form labels this set of human remains “Ancient Jane”: an anonymous Jane Doe from another century. Because her name is not known, twenty-first-century area residents are unsure what to call her. Some resist inventing a name for her, opting to refer to her as nineteenth-century African-American woman. Others prefer “Miss Jane,” a title in keeping with African-American tradition and respect for elders. Still others think of her as a "young soul."

In the spring of 2019, I worked with community members to arrange for the internment of Miss Jane at Lexington’s historically Black Evergreen Cemetery. The City of Lexington donated a plot; carpenters crafted a coffin from local oaks; a memorial company contributed a gravestone: “Unknown African American Woman/ Died ca. 1800’s/ Exhumed During Construction of Rockbridge County Courthouse In 2008./ Reinterred May 19, 2019.” Area citizens contributed funds to hire a caisson with Percherons to convey the coffin to the cemetery and brought flowers, freshly cut flowers from their yards, to place on it.

At the reinternment, W&L Professor of History, Dr. Theodore Carter DeLaney, remarked that this young woman “was just as likely to have been a free woman as an enslaved person. … We do not know the decades of the nineteenth century in which this woman lived, or how she negotiated the racial landscape. All we know is that construction workers brought her skeletal remains into the twenty-first century.  . . . In return for pulling her remains into our time, we offer this memorial service, a handmade coffin, a new grave, and a gravestone.”

Image: At Randolph Street United Methodist Church in Lexington in 2019, anthropologist Erin Schwartz directs the laying out of the skeletal remains that were discovered in 2008, just one block away from the church. Flanking Schwartz are Maria Quillin, a member of the church, and Ted Delaney.

Click here for media coverage of "Miss Jane's Journey."

for more updates about "Miss Jane."

for "Ancient Jane" A 19th Century Black Woman is Reburied."

for "Musings on Miss Jane."

"States of Exception":  A Colloquium 

I organized this colloquium to bring together faith leaders, scholars, students, community leaders, and  journalists to share their knowledge of people who struggled for recognition of their full humanity in southwest Virginia and nearby areas. The colloquium's name adopted a phrase popularized by philosopher Giorgio Agamben, "states of exception," to focus attention on people often considered unworthy of basic human rights. 

Click here for the colloquium's website.

The Washingon and Lee University Community

I'm grateful for the many opportunities I've had to serve our University community. Faculty peers elected me as a member of the Advisory Committee, as a Faculty Representative to the Board of Trustees, and twice as a member of the Faculty Affairs Committee, on which I served as inaugural chair. I've also served, for example, on International Education Committee, the Student Financial Aid Committee, and Writing Program Advisory Committee, and have chaired the Automatic Rule and Reinstatement Committee, the Graduate Fellowship Committee, the University Collections of Art and History Committee, and the Historic Preservation and Archaeological Conservation Advisory Board.

One of my fondest, most meaningful undertakings was helping to organize the 50th Anniversary of W&L Archaeology Reunion in 2024. The gathering honored Professor John McDaniel and Nell R. McDaniel whose efforts established and supported not only archaeology at W&L but also more broadly the James G. Leyburn Scholars Program in Anthropology. Scores of  participants -- friends of the McDaniels, John's classmates, alumni, and  beneficiaries of the Leyburn Program -- assembled to gratefully celebrate these accomplishments and this intergenerational community.