This is a very busy time of the year: the last three weekends in February included four major events and every weekend in March we will be at a major event, with a few other events thrown in for good measure.
The big news from Spring Leadership is that the Virginia Society will host the 2020 National Congress - the Board of Trustees approved Virginia for 2020. The site location and hotel will be selected by the National Congress Planning Committee in the Fall of this year. There will be a lot of opportunities to serve in the four year run up to that event. The two cities that are currently being considered are Norfolk and Richmond.
In March I would like to call your attention to one particular event: James Madison’s Birthday. The ceremony will be at Montpelier on Wednesday, March 16th, at 1:30pm. This is not a color guard event, so coat and tie are appropriate. It is a very nice ceremony, in a beautiful location to honor our fourth president, father of our constitution, and colonel of the Orange County Militia. If you can, join us in honoring James Madison on his birthday.
Also of note on March 19th we will be trying a new venue for our chapter meeting, The Inn at Willow Grove in Orange. One of our newer members, Tom Brooks, is responsible for making this happen and Willow Grove shows great promise. The speaker at this meeting will be Dr. John Ragosta, who many of you know from Little Fork Church. He will speak on “Hornets, Snakes, Baptists & Presbyterians: Winning the Contest for Religious Freedom in the Piedmont During and After the Revolution.” That should be a good talk. If the topic interests you, you can catch a longer version of it the previous Monday, March 14th, at Little Fork Church, when Dr. Ragosta will present this talk in much more depth to the Warrenton Antiquarian Society. For future meetings we are working on lining up a group of Hessian re-enactors to tell us about the Hessian soldiers that fought for the British and Bobbie LeViness of the Marshall House in Richmond, who talks on John Marshall’s experiences in the revolution. Watch the Muster Call for information.
Spring is nearly here, and soon we will be going to Graves Mountain, April 23rd to be precise. We are all looking forward to better weather, flowers, green leaves, and also to springtime SAR activities.
Your Servant,
Bill Schwetke, president