Stop #4
The Town Run is to your right. One source of the stream comes from a spring several blocks north at Hupp's Homestead. Bruce Hupp had his commercial watercress beds there. Often he boarded the train at Strasburg Depot in the morning, delivered his fresh greens to Alexandria markets, and returned via train by early afternoon.
At one time, Town Run was divided: one branch ran through Jeremiah Keister's garden (the present carwash), continued under a house at King Street and under the street providing water to operate Funk's Tannery (where Town Hall is located) and Obed Chandler's tannery on block beyond. The second branch is the straight canal you see today. The streams rejoined at Queen Street and continued to wind to the Shenandoah River.
About 1742, Samuel Funk built a grist mill near the confluence of Town Run and the river. Strasburg was not officially established and the area was commonly referred to as "Funk's Mill settlement at the Shenandoah." In describing the vast region, early trappers and hunters called it "the valley of the senedoes." The ancient Senedo tribe was gone long before the first whites explored the valley, but it is thought that the melodic name "Shenandoah," meaning "Clear-eyed Daughter of the Stars," is derived from Senedo.
The log house behind you was built in 1777. The land was sold by Peter Stover, the town's founder, with the stipulation that a house be built within one year. The rear wing was erected first and used as a tannery. The two-story front came later and eventually the space between the two structures was boarded in. Notice the neatly dovetailed logs at the building's corners. The property was conveyed to the Town of Strasburg in 1940 and deeded to the local Chapter of the Sons of Confederate Veterans in 1995.
Brother Sirone, a Sabbatarian monk and master craftsman, arrived in Strasburg with a potter's wheel in 1761. That same year Strasburg was established by the Virginia House of Burgess in an act introduced by Representative George Washington. The pottery industry was very important to Strasburg. Four potteries were located across the street:
-Jeremiah Keister, 1880
-William H. Lehew, 1890
-George Miller, 1890-1899
-Luther D. Funkhouser, 1899-1905
Bishop Francis Asbury's "Journal" records his presence in the Shenandoah Valley between 1794 and 1806. His work is thought to be the beginning of Methodism here. In 1835 trustees of a small Methodist congregation paid Adam Keister $55 for a lot at the northwest corner of Holliday and Washington Streets. Their plan to build the Strasburg United Methodist Church finally came to life in 1876 when a frame structure was completed. The present Gothic Revival church replaced the original building in 1905.
As yo uwalk to Stop #5 at Fort Street, notice the lovely examples of Folk Victorian style homes that date from the late 19th and very early 20th Centuries.
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