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INSCRIPTIONS AT 'WOODSON'S CAVE' ON WILLIS MT
Thomas T Bannister
Dept of Biology, University of Rochester, Rochester NY 14627
telephone: 585-275-8716
email address:
August 1999; revised Feb 2007
In a footnote, Shepard (1933) wrote that on the rock wall of Woodson's
Cave on the west flank of the southern segment of Willis Mountain in
Buckingham County are the names of "early explorers" "R. Bolling I. Bell 1700"
and "W. Smith P. Turpin 1709".
In August 1977, my wife, two sons, and I climbed to the cave and read and
photographed the two inscriptions which were then dry and quite clear. In July
1999, I revisited the cave in company with my sons, a daughter-in-law, my two
grandsons, and three Turpin cousins from Richmond. We found the inscriptions
much less clear than earlier, and being wet we failed in an attempt to make
rubbings on rice paper.
Shepard correctly recorded the four names, but incorrectly recorded the
years. In both cases, the inscribed year is 1769. The earlier misreading is no
doubt due to the fact that the "loops" of 6's and 9's are large and occupy the
full space of a capital letter, with the "legs" of the 6's ascending far above
and the "legs" of the 9's descending far below the line. A booklet on
Buckingham County history in the Buckingham County Clerk's Office propagates
the error in recording the years. The Bolling-Bell-1769 inscription occupies
an area of perhaps 18 inches square with the two names and year inscribed on
three lines. The Smith-Turpin-1769 inscription is similar, but is located
roughly 6 feet east and 2 feet higher on the cave wall. The names and years
are carefully chiselled in roughly 3 inch high capital letters.
Three of the four names - R. Bolling, I. Bell, and W. Smith - I know
little about. The fourth name "P Turpin" is likely that of Philip Turpin,
1749- ca 1828, son of Thomas Turpin II (1708-1790) and Mary Jefferson, sister of Peter Jefferson and aunt of the President. Thomas Turpin II lived at
"Cherry Row" on the north side of Jones Creek in Powhatan County, on a portion of a 1500 acre tract patented in 1718 jointly by his father Tho Turpin I, Tho Jefferson (grandfather of the President), Jno Archer, and Robt Eseley. In the mid 18th C, Tho Turpin II held several Cumberland County Offices. Together
with Wm Cabell and Tho Jefferson, he served as Assistant Surveyor of Albemarle County in 1744-1756 under Joshua Fry.
We know something of Philip Turpin from his entries in the "Old Turpin
Notebook" which is preserved at the Bancroft Library, Univ of California-
Berkeley. In 1769, Philip Turpin, age 20, had already learned Latin and was
then studying Greek; he filled many pages of the notebook with Greek
vocabulary lists. The following year he travelled to Edinburgh to begin the
study of medecine. The notebook includes his accounts of the voyage to
Liverpool (the ship lost a mast in a storm) and the stage coach trip to
Edinburgh (wayside towns, countryside, and inns are described). Among recorded dates are his leave-taking and embarcation on 14 August 1770, arrival in Liverpool 12 Oct 1770, arrival in Edinburgh 26 Oct 1770, departure from
Edinburgh 31 May 1775, arrival in London 11 Jun 1775, "in France" 15 Sep 1775-24 February 1776, "My son Philip was born 19 September 1775", return to Norfolk 12 Jul 1781. At Edinburgh, according to Blanton (1931), Philip wrote a thesis "De Epilepsia" and graduated in 1774. Also recorded at length are early
experiments in plant physiology conducted by Stephen Hales "father of plant
physiology".
The notebook entries show that, in 1769, Philip Turpin, then age 20, was a
well educated young man, committed to continuing study in medecine, with an
adventuresome spirit and enthusiastic interest in the world about him. One
guesses that the inscriptions at Woodson Cave mark a holiday outing and
respite from studies for Philip and three companions.
"Base camp" for the outing could well have been one of the properties
which Thomas Turpin II patented in present-day Buckingham and Appomattox
Counties. Ten miles north of Willis Mt, Thomas Turpin patented a 400 acre
tract on both sides of Turpin Creek in 1737 and enlarged his holdings to 1800
acres by a patent in 1762. The location of the expanded tract has been
approximately located; the tract stretched from Route 20 eastward to Joshua
Creek and lay mainly south of Route 617. Of this land, Turpin deeded 400 acres
to Jno Bondurant in 1760 (Albemarle Deed Bk 2:322). The disposition of the
remaining acreage is not known (Buckingham records from 1762 to 1869 have been lost by fire). Some of the land apparently remained in Turpin ownership at
least until 1792: adjacent tracts patented by James Ford in 1792 and Isaac
Salle in 1783 both refer to lines of Thomas Turpin.
Three miles south of Willis Mt, on Little Willis River & Gills Creek lay
another tract of Thomas Turpin II, 725 acres patented in 1755 in then
Albemarle Co (later Buckingham County). How long this land remained in Turpin
ownership is unknown.
Nineteen miles west of Willis Mt, Thomas Turpin owned about 1200 acres in
Appomattox County. The land lay about 3 miles north of Appomattox Courthouse, on the S side of Bald Mt, at the heads of Bridle Creek (todays Bent Ck) and Elk Creek (an east fork of Wreck Island Creek). He patented 400a in 1756 and increased his holding to 1125a by a patent in 1760. His will (Powhatan Will Bk 2:350) signed in 1789 devised this land, 1172a at the "head of Appomattox River", to son Peterfield. That the will also devised all the slaves and stock on the land shows that the property was actively farmed.
That Philip Turpin, son of Thomas Turpin II, was in 1769 of the right age
for an excursion and that his father owned properties in the vicinity make
plausible his identification with "P Turpin" of the inscription. But the
proposition is not proved. Other Philip Turpins are known. Philips older
brother William Turpin, 1741-ca 1824, who lived near Muddy Creek in Cumberland County, had a son Philip born in 1757. At age 12, he could have made the excursion. The name Philip also occurred in a collateral Turpin lineage in Chesterfield County (Akerly and Parker 1930).
References
Akerly, M.D. and L. E. J. Parker. 1930. Our kin - the genealogy of some of the
early families who made history in the founding and development of Bedford
County, Virginia. Lynchburg, J.P. Bell, Inc.
Blanton, W. B. 1931. Medecine in Virginia in the 17th century. Richmond,
Garrett & Massie.
Old Turpin Notebook. Bancroft Library, Univ of California-Berkeley. Call
number ZZ 136. The index card reads "Philip Turpin, Virginia genealogy and
commonplace book ca 1770-1806".
Shepard, Wm. 1933. Accounts of Buckingham planters. Wm&Mary Quart 13:180-181, series 2.
Photos from July 1999 visit to Woodson's Cave (but no good ones of the
inscriptions) may be seen at...
http://albums.photopoint.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=51249&a=416598
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Note Added - Aug 2002
Margaret Thomas <> of Buckingham Co recently wrote as follows:
"I just ran across your article entitled 'Inscriptions at Woodson's Cave on
Willis Mountain.' If you are still at this address, I have some additional
information about Woodson's Cave and a cave you may not know about--
Burford's Cave--that has the same inscriptions.
"Burford's Cave is located approximately 3 miles north of Dillwyn just off
of Hwy 15. There is a good view of Willis Mountain from Burford's Cave and
they probably were both landmarks for land surveying. By road, Burford's
and Woodson's are approximately 8 miles apart, but less as the crow files.
Burford's has the same inscriptions as Woodson's Cave, i.e: R. Bolling, H.
Bell, W. Smith, and P.Turpin, 1769. R. Bolling is probably Robert Bolling.
John Bolling was granted a land patent of almost 7000 acres in Buckingham
in 1748 which included most of the land between Burford's & Willis
Mountain. H. Bell is probably Henry Bell. The letter H is joined to the
Bell and is often interpreted as an I. He was a surveyor and may have been
clerk of the court at one time.
"I am a local history buff and have visited both caves. The caves have also
been visited by Brent E. Owens of the Department of Geology at the College
of William & Mary who sometimes teaches a class on Buckingham County at
William & Mary. His email is although I have not
heard from him in about a year and he would probably be interested in your
article.
"I wish I had run across your article earlier. I had to convince everyone
locally that the date in Woodson's was 1769 instead of 1700! That
incorrect date of 1700 had been circulated for so many years that people
thought it was 'written in stone!' (I can't believe I just said that!)"
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Note Added - Feb 2007
On 6th Feb, a frigid day with a biting wind, I climbed Buffard's Mt and found my way through thickets of saplings and brambles to the cave at the south end of the outcropping. There, on the rock wall, were the names "W Smith", "R Bolling", and "H Bell" and the year "1769". I was unable find the name "P Turpin". Thinking I might have overlooked it, I queried Margaret Thomas () who replied...
"I reexamined some photos that I had taken at Buffard's Cave (locallycalled
Burford's Cave.)I did not see theinscription P.Turpin in the photographs.Thank
you for pointing this out to me. Sorry that I gave you misinformation."
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For permission to climb Willis Mt: Gene Dixon, Kyanite Mining Inc, PO Box 486, Dillwyn VA 23936. Or Sallie Mowbray, Kyanite Mining Corp, Tel 804-983-2085.