The Daily News Leader from Staunton, Virginia • 14

B6 The News Leader, Saturday, May 5, 2002 HISTORY www. newsleader.com Birthplace of pioneering Clark, York to pay them due Clark eventually granted York his freedom around 1816. There are conflicting stories about York's final years. According to one version, he died in Tennessee from cholera. Another has him living contentedly with Crow Indians.

Historians say he died sometime between 1822 and 1832. Interestingly, Louisville is laying claim to York with a statue of its own to be unveiled next year. "It's appropriate for his hometown to honor him," Louisville Mayor Dave Armstrong told The Louisville 38 Courier-Journal last year. Wilson said he doesn't begrudge Louisville. "That's fine.

Anything that gets the word out about him is good." But Wilson adds, "This is where he was born. This is where all that courage was nurtured." National Council of the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial. The council deemed the January 2003 kickoff in Albemarle the first of 14 "signature" events because Jefferson, as-president, arranged for the exploration. Expedition co-captain Meriwether Lewis was born in Albemarle. But Caroline also isn't about to let its connection to the opening of the American West slip by unnoticed.

County officials are planning their own tribute to Clark and York, a slave known by one name who grew up with the explorer and accompanied him on the expedition. Mark Shore, Virginia's representative to the national council's Circle of State Bicentennial Advisors, said Monti-cello was selected "by default" late in the process because no other Virginia entity had stepped forward. "Our state wasn't there at the table," said Shore, director of the Charlottesville-Albemarle Convention and Visitors Center. Wilson concedes Caroline only recently started putting its plans together. Shore said it's not too late for Caroline to become part of the celebration in Virginia.

He is arranging for tours to outlying areas connected to the expedition. "I would love to be able to showcase what's going on in Caroline," he said. Today, only a roadside sign marks the vicinity of the site where Clark was born in August 1770. So Caroline officials are starting a fund-raising clampaign to create a statue depicting Clark, York and an American Indian. "It took all three cultures," Wilson said.

Contributors would be recognized on an accompanying plaque, he said, and planners also are hoping to arrange for lectures. Wilson said the county's celebration the summer of 2003 will pay respects to both Clark and York, possibly focusing more on trie slave because fewer people know his story. No authentic images of the slave exist. York, chosen as the young Clark's personal slave during childhood, was born in Caroline a few years after Clark. The two were said to have been playmates, and he accompanied Clark's family when they moved to Kentucky in the mid-1780s.

"They apparently had a very good relationship, as best one could have under those circumstances," Wilson said. Historians say York was treated as almost an equal on the expedition. He was allowed a vote on matters. He carried a rifle. He fascinated curious Indians who had never before seen a black man some even tried to rub his skin color away with dirt, historians say.

And he saved Clark and their Indian guide, Sacagawea, from a flash flood. Yet, unlike other expedition members, York was not paid for his services or given land after the voyage. Clark's relationship with York soured after their return, when Clark decided to settle in St. Louis, historians say. York had family in Louisville, and asked Clark to set him free so that he could rejoin them.

Clark initially refused, then loaned him to a more demanding master in Louisville, historians say. 1 mail uireaii iiuls sim A x.m-A'aay r-v IMS VMKt A packed with Klan members passed through New Hope, bound for the nearby farm of John Sandridge. Their vendetta, it would soon be learned, had to do with a recent court case in which the Augusta farmer had been found guilty of somehow abusing a local woman and her son, and in doing so contributing to their "delinquency." Sometime later, die Sandridges were alarmed to find a wooden cross ablaze in one of their fields. The panicked family fled to Staunton, where they alerted a local deputy sheriff, who, equally panicked, then notified the commonwealth attorney. He, in turn, brought the matter before a judge, who determined that if mob violence was in any way imminent decisive action should be taken.

By that time, the governor of Virginia had been notified and was seriously considering the mobilization of state troops. Staunton had already sounded the tocsin, an audible "riot call" drawing to the armory the city's whole company of home guard. The month of May is traditionally a time of good fellowship and renewed conviviality among Stauntonians, excepting that space of 1924 when local members of the Klu Klux Klan came brazenly out of the woodwork to make a rare public spectacle of themselves. Their meeting was scheduled to occur at the Plunkettsville circus grounds on the evening of May 3rd, the Leader reported two days earlier, whereupon the Klan would present several "prominent speakers" prior to its initiation of between 175 and 200 new members. According to M.

H. Davis, head of the Klan's "Staunton office," a parade through the city streets proceeding the ceremonies was planned for 8 o'clock. The necessary permits, he said, had been secured from Staunton Mayor J. WH.Pilson. If the city's white residents were unconcerned at the announcement of the planned march, they wouldn't be by the time it rolled around.

At about 9:30 pm. on May 1, six cars The Associated Press Representatives from more than 20 organizations donate wreaths for the 258th commemorative anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson, April 1 3, 2001 at the cemetery at Monticello outside Charlottesville. Jefferson descendants ponder membership, cemetery for Hemingses Caroline celebrates the diversity of explorers Richmond Times-Dispatch BOWLING GREEN In its earliest sense, William Clark's epic journey to the Pacific Coast began at the Caroline County farm where he was born. Yet, when America kicks off next year's national bicentennial of the famed Lewis and Clark expedition, the celebration will start 70 miles to the west at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in Albemarle County. Caroline officials say they aren't miffed.

"They certainly have no obligation to include us," Gary Wilson, Caroline's economic development director, said of the This Week in Local History Staunton entertained performers' athleticism 89 Years Ago Staunton's favorite "physical culturists" were back at the Beverley again. "Quite a large audience was delighted with the performance given by Mainfort and Maurice, acrobats and athletes," the Leader noted on May 3, 1913. "Both men do some sensational stunts on the rings and mat and Main-fort's double disloation on a fourteen inch bar has never been duplicated here. "Maurice does clowning stunt which is both clever and amusing and Mainfort's plastic posing would put a Greek god to shame. The performance closed with a wrestling exhibition which plainly showed all the chief holds and positions used on the mat.

And it might be added that with his stage togs on, Bobby's picture does not flatter him, handsome though it maybe." Mini gator no match for hungry frog 90 Years Ago "Great excitement was visible around Hughes' Drugstore this morning," the Leader reported, over the course of a cerrtain bullfrog belonging to Mr. Maurice Cohen which had been on exhibition with a mute in the window of the drugstore. "In the same tank were two pretty good sized alligators, ten to twelve inches tang, sent up from Florida by Mr. M. N.

Bradley. Sunday night one of the frogs apparently having his appetite arou-used by the odors from the restaurant next door, conceived the idea that the smaller of the two alligators would taste mighty good and he prodeeded to swallow him. "This morning Mr. C. E.

Hall, drug clerk, missed one of the alligators and at once noticed that one of the frogs seemed to have grown over night out of all proportion and investigation disclosed th fact that he had swallowed the Persons were found who had seen the tail of the 'gator' protruding from the frog's mouth Sunday night presumably shortly after he had performed the swallowing feat The frog was killed and cut open, and the alligator found still whole, but dead, his back having been broken in the swallowing act The frog was given back to Mr. Cohen and will now take his turn at being swallowed." Compiled by Terry Shulman Briefly Monument honors Haitian allies SAVANNAH Agroup of Haitian-Americans in Florida hopes to build a monument in Savannah to honor their Haitian ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War. The dry's Sites and Monuments Commission must approve the project which would be paid for by the society. About 1,500 free black Haitian volunteers fought in the 1 779 Siege of Savannah as part of French forces. From Wire Reports it hWm 1 I 4- tin aieri.

With the town on tenterhooks, the Sandridge 's took what was probably the wisest course of action under the circumstances: They went into hiding. Once their dissapearence had been duly noted, the situation began deflating rapidly. The governor decided against the dispatching of troops. By midnight the day after the cross burning, the home guard were sent home. Typically, the Klan denied having anything to do with the incendiary incident.

Not that they were at all adverse to basking in the attention it afforded them, or the huge crowds that would turn out the following night to watch approximately two hundred local Mansmen march down Beverley and back up Frederick Street, in full regalia, to the beat of a brass band. After the participants had dispersed, the Sandridge's returned to their farm presumably without incident. Only then could the city government sink back into its usual state of tranquility, the dreaded race riot that never was having been decisively averted. in ST -Zip Day( add sales tax QDiscover Card CheckMo Ex.Date at WWW.USCOINS.COM Inc. Serving Investors and Collectors Since 1974 Jot it t-n i a.

official Estate Liquidation 4 i Original I.S. oraaioai Mm Site Dollars Most Coins at Least 100 Years Old! The Associated Press Thomas Jefferson's seventh-generation grandson David Works said he can understand why family members no longer like the annual reunions in Virginia. "Why spend $1,000 to go to Charlottesville if all you're going to do is fight?" said Works, who lives in Denver. "You can stay home and do that." Ever since a DNA test showed that a Jefferson male possibly the third president himself fathered slave Sally Hemings' son Eston, the family has squabbled over how to treat their newfound cousins and whether to allow them in their exclusive Monticello Association. This weekend, after four years of infighting during which family members have hired their own public relations consultants, sponsored independent research and placed gag orders on association members, Jefferson's family is finally going to decide if Hemings' children belong at the table.

Works, who is running for association president on Sunday, considers himself a moderate between family members who want to keep the association restricted to Jefferson's proven offspring and others who want to give the Hemings clan the benefit of the doubt. He supports a plan recommended by the association's Membership Advisory Committee to create a separate but distinct heritage organization for all descendants of Jefferson's slaves. With the permission of Monticello 's caretakers, the new group could even build its own burial plot apart from the Jefferson family cemetery. "It will be an equal partnership, not like we're the guys in the big house and they're the folks out in the field," he said. "I can't agree with those who want to slam the door on them (the Hemings family).

That's just not the way you treat people." The association is expected to discuss the plan at a business meeting on Sunday in Charlottesville at Jefferson's historic home. At the meeting, members also will elect new officers and decide whether to change membership qualifications to include the Hemings family. Works said he doesn't know how many people support his view. "It's segregation. It's asking us to sit in the back of the bus," Shay Banks-Young, a Hemings descendant, said of the separate cemetery proposal.

On tfca Kiwww.monticello-assoc.org Kiwww.tjheritage.org Within the fractious association of 800 members, the debate has even turned brother against brother. Works' brother, John Works rejects the theory that Jefferson and Hemings were lovers and wants her family removed from the association's business. He is backing a different presidential candidate. "We're not going to bend to political correctness," John Works said. "If you can prove your case, we'll of course let you in.

But it's your burden. For (Hemings descendants) to say, 'I don't need no DNA well, I'm sorry, but you do." John, 47, said his sibling rivalry with David, 45, has intensified with the Hemings controversy. The elder Works, who was president of the association in the 1980s, supported association vice president Nathaniel Abeles for the position before David Works started campaigning. "David's candidacy is a spiteful action against his brother," John Works said. Abeles, a financial analyst in Washington, D.C., would not comment on his opinion about the Hemings family.

All association members were ordered not to speak about the committee report until after this weekend. The Monticello Association was started in 1913 by descendants of Thomas Jefferson to promote their famous ancestor and preserve the cemetery down the hill from the family estate where Jefferson and others are buried. The wooded plot now holds about 200 descendants and non-descendants. The reunions that accompanied the association's annual meeting were generally somber occasions in which distant family members would come to the house and again gawk at Jefferson's old maps and inventions. But everything changed in 1999 when Hemings family members started attending, emboldened by a 1998 study that showed a genetic link between the Hemings and Jefferson descendants.

Reunions became politicized, especially after scholars from Monticello concluded that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings. An independent study commissioned by John Works later argued that Jefferson's younger brother Randolph was the likely culprit. By order of the estate, Eastern Monetary Reserve will liquidate a hoard of 4,555 Morgan Silver Dollars to the American public on a first come first served basis. These coins are from the estate of a prominent Midwest industrialist who recently died and requested in his will that the coins be sold to the American Public as a memento of this country's hard money heritage. The King of U.S.

coins, the Morgan Dollar, contains .77344 oz. of silver that was unearthed at the rich silver mines of the American West, including the legendary Comstock Lode near Virginia City, Nevada. The coins in this estate include specimens from the Philadelphia, New Orleans, and San Francisco Mints and are dated 1878 to 1904. The coins remain unsorted and grade a very pleasing very good and better. The owner of these coins was a true believer in the need to hold precious metals as part of one's investments and acquired the coins throughout his lifetime.

Eastern Monetary Reserve will distribute these historic coins direct to the American public as long as our supply lasts for only $12.95 each. The dates and mints will be chosen randomly and the price is guaranteed while the supply lasts. We have been authorized to offer these coins in the following quantities. YES Please send me the following quantity of original Morgan Silver Dollars, most at least 100 years old. I understand that I have 30-days to inspect my coins and if not completely satisfied I may return them for a full refund.

Please check quantity desired. NAME ADDRESS. CITY Total $5 $7 $9 $15 $20 $25 $43.85 $71.75 $138.50 $274.00 New York residents Visa QMC QAmex Card No. $667.50 $1320.00 Signature Visit us on the web Price 3 Coin(s) 5 Coin(s) 10 Coin(s) 20 Coin(s) 50Coin(s) lOOCoin(s) $38.85 $64.75 $129.50 $259.00 $647.50 $1295.00 EASTERN MONETARY In I 642 Franklin Garden City, New York 11530 For Fast Service Call 1-800-835-0008 RESERVE Mi Extent Monetary Resent is a subsidiar) of Eastern Numismatics.