Adjacent to the Albemarle County Courthouse, the equestrian statue of Thomas Jonathan (“Stonewall”) Jackson was the third of four monuments given by philanthropist Paul Goodloe McIntire for the embellishment of his native city. Such civic works of art were essential ingredients of the City Beautiful Movement, a turn-of-the-20th-century effort to enhance America’s cities with public amenities of fine design. Charlottesville’s much-praised Lewis and Clark monument encouraged McIntire to commission the eminent sculptor Charles Keck to produce this additional work. Though a monument to Jackson was contemplated as early as 1897, not until Keck’s statue was unveiled in 1921 was the ambition fulfilled. Keck portrayed Jackson riding into battle on Little Sorrel. Carved on the granite pedestal are allegorical figures of Faith and Valor. The Thomas Jonathan Jackson Sculpture has been considered one of the nation’s finest equestrian monuments. In 2017, amid a broad national debate over Confederate monuments, Charlottesville’s city council voted to remove the the Stonewall Jackson statue and the Robert E. Lee Sculpture. A “Unite the Right” rally in the city in the summer of 2017 protesting the decision turned violent, with one counterdemonstrator dying as a result. The Thomas Jonathan Jackson Sculpture was removed in 2021.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia