Demolition update

    Demolition of the house on Yarrow's property nears as the Commission of Fine Arts, which is composed of three architects, met on October 18 and found that the house "was allowed to deteriorate excessively over many years and recently damaged by a fallen tree such that its architectural integrity has been lost."  The city preservation office said in an email that based on this ruling it must issue a demolition permit.

From Yarrow's Obituary

     The house itself was not the one Yarrow lived in, but there may be items from his occupancy on the land.  For one thing, Yarrow was buried there.  For another thing, the bricks that make up the cellar are older than the house. In fact, they are handmade and probably date from his time.  Since Yarrow was a brick maker, he may have made them.  In addition, the floor of the cellar could contain items from his time and so could the yard.  The yard has an overburden of up to five feet of dirt dumped there when a swimming pool was put in another section of the yard.

Bricks in cellar are handmade

      Whether demolition of the house will disturb the grave, bricks, and other artifacts is unclear.  It depends on whether the demolition permit allows the cellar to be bulldozed and yard torn up.

America's Islamic Heritage Museum

     On Sunday, October 21, I spoke and signed books at America’s Islamic Heritage Museum in Washington DC.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Islamic_Heritage_Museum.  The museum is the brain child of Amir Muhammad, who has done a great deal of original research to uncover America’s Islamic past. Who knew that Cedar Rapids, Iowa in the heart of the Bible-belt has the oldest purpose-built mosque in the United States.

      The museum was an appropriate venue at which to talk about Yarrow since it has the exhibit on the right about him and since the building housing the library used to be a carriage house for the Bealls, part of the extended family that had owned Yarrow.  Like my talks at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Peabody Room of the Georgetown Public Library, Mt. Moriah Church in Pleasant Valley, Maryland, and the Balch Library in Leesburg, Virginia, I found myself talking in a place related to the people in the book.

The Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Va.

   On Sunday, September 30, I spoke at the Thomas Balch Library in Leesburg, Virginia.  The library started as a small, private subscription library in 1907.  In 1922, it moved into a new building, dedicated to Thomas Balch, a noted lawyer in Leesburg.  His bust, on the right, stands prominently in the library. 
    The library was an ironic venue for me.  Thomas Balch's uncle, Rev. Thomas Bloomer Balch of Georgetown in Washington DC, knew Yarrow Mamout.  Indeed, he delivered two noted lectures in Georgetown in 1859 in which he mentioned "Old Yarrah," who had died thirty-six years earlier.  Although Thomas Balch of Leesburg, the man at the right, was but two-years-old when Yarrow died and would not have known him, he may well have heard his uncle talk about the African.  His uncle's 1859 lectures were such a major event that he might have gone to Georgetown to hear them.  For me, this bust put a face to a family, the Balches, that were until my visit only names on a page. 
     The Leesburg library is unusual in several ways.  It is no longer private.  The town of Leesburg took over ownership in 1994.  And it is now primarily a research library.  Only a few books in its collection may be checked out. The Loudon County public library is the community's lending library.  And the Balch library, rather than a historical society, serves as repository for the town's historical material.
      In my tour of the library, I was shown a small painting of General Lafayette of American Revolution fame.  Lafayette had returned to the United States for a friendship tour in 1824.  He supposedly stopped in Leesburg where he was the guest of Thomas Balch's father.  The painting was done at that time.  I can't attest to the authenticity of the painting, although the library can, but I have seen other portraits of Lafayette that were done at about the same time, and the man in the library's painting is the same as the man in those portraits.  That reminded me of what a small, intimate place America once was.  Charles Willson Peale, who painted Yarrow, had painted Lafayette during the winter the Continental Army spent at Valley Forge.  More on the Thomas Balch library.