Department of Historic Resources (www.dhr.virginia.gov) For Immediate Release October 13, 2021

Contact: Randy Jones, DHR Randy.jones@dhr.virginia.gov 540-578-3031

—Montgomery County marker highlights the role of the Crockett brothers and Virginia frontiersmen in securing Patriot victory in the American Revolution—

—Marker text reproduced below—

This weekend a state historical marker issued by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources will be dedicated that highlights the role of the Crockett brothers, western Virginia frontiersmen, in helping to secure victory in the American Revolution, especially during the last two years of the war, in 1780 and 1781. The Eastmont Community Foundation and the Meadowbrook Museum of History, sponsor of the marker, will dedicate the sign during a pageant-filled public ceremony on Sunday, October 17, starting at 2 p.m., at the historical Crockett Farm, today’s Rivermont Farm, located at 847 Alleghany Spring Road, Shawsville, in Montgomery County. Parking for the event is available behind the farmhouse and in adjacent fields. The sponsors encourage attendees to bring a lawn chair. Event speakers will include Montgomery County Board of Supervisors chair Steve Fijalkowski; Virginia Tech associate professor Dan Thorp; Mac Sammons of Rivermont Farm; and the Rev. Terry C. Blevins. Local Scout Troops will help lead the dedication ceremony with the Posting of Colors and the Pledge of Allegiance. Local Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution chapters and the Scouts will unveil the historic marker. The Fincastle Company, 18th-century living history interpreters, will fire volleys honoring the Crocketts and other Southwest Virginia soldiers who fought in the Revolutionary War as well as the signers of the Fincastle Resolutions, a document sent to the Virginia delegation of the First Continental Congress in support of the American colonists’ political rights. The day’s events will also see the dedication of a sign recognizing Rivermont Farm as a Century Farm, a program of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. Rivermont is the sixth Century Farm so-recognized in Montgomery County. The Crockett brothers Joseph, Walter, and Hugh, sons of Joseph and Jeanne Crockett, lived on the farm from the early 1760s, and were all colonels in either the Continental Army or the Virginia Militia during the American Revolution. The “American Revolution on the Frontier” marker was approved for manufacture and installation in 2020 by the Virginia Board of Historic Resources, which is authorized to designate new state historical markers. The marker’s manufacturing costs were covered by its sponsor. Virginia’s historical highway marker program, which began in 1927 with the installation of the first historical markers along U.S. Route 1, is considered the oldest such program in the nation. Currently there are more than 2,600 official state markers, most maintained by the Virginia Department of Transportation, and by local partners in jurisdictions outside of VDOT’s authority. [PLEASE NOTE: DHR markers are erected not to “honor” their subjects but rather to educate and inform the public about a person, place, or event of regional, state, or national importance. In this regard, markers are not memorials.] Text of marker: American Revolution on the Frontier Joseph and Jeanne de Vigné Crockett settled on this farm early in the 1760s. Three of their sons served as officers in the Revolutionary War. Col. Hugh Crockett, who lived here until his death in 1816, led militia during expeditions to North Carolina in 1780 and 1781. Col. Walter Crockett represented Montgomery County in the General Assembly in Williamsburg and, as a militia commander, suppressed a Loyalist plot against the lead mines near Wytheville in 1779.  Lt. Col. Joseph Crockett served in the Continental army at the Battles of Brandywine, Germantown, and Monmouth and later led a Virginia battalion that served under Brig. Gen. George Rogers Clark in the West and Northwest.

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