Hand painted mural in the entryway of the VFW Museum in Sparta, North Carolina.
The Bruce Wayne Osborne Post 7034 Veterans of Foreign Wars has been hard at work, for the last several months, on a military history museum. And they’ve enlisted the help of Imaging Specialists to finish the main entryway. Sparta businesswoman and Gulf War veteran, Kathy Murphy, has created a beautiful mural above the stairs to the Museum located in the lower level of the VFW’s building located at 1193 US21 (Main Street, just out of town) in Sparta.
We were able to help by laying out, cutting and installing removable vinyl lettering beneath the mural. The text is taken from the St. Crispen’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V and fits into the patriotic theme of the museum.
Thank you Kathy for your hours of work and to all you folks for your years of service on our behalf.
And that’s just the entrance. The group has pitched in to assemble a first rate collection of militaria divided into the four main branches of service, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps. The collection seems to grow daily and includes videos and literature for research.
If you’ve not yet been to the museum, plan a trip. Imaging Specialists is proud to have played a small part in this project to honor our veterans.
While researching online for our upcoming book, Four Brothers in Gray, we’ve found a few things we weren’t looking for. ISI is reprinting the book with permission from Wilkes Community College (who has copyrights to the 1975 work by Mary Alice Hancock.)
In it, Miss Hancock tells about the Proffit family of Wilkes County, North Carolina, and the four sons of William and Mary Proffit that left home to fight for the South in the Great Rebellion. She uses the boys’ own words- excerpts taken from over 100 letters sent home to Lewis Fork by the boys and their cousins to trace their paths through the war.
The oldest, Andrew J. Profit, was captured twice by the Union: first at Chancellorsville and released, then at Spotsylvania, where this time, he was sent to Pt. Lookout, a Northern prison in Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay.
At Chancellorsville, he was officially- and erroneously- listed by Colonel John Barry as killed in action while bearing the flag of the 18th NC Infantry. But Andy was, in fact, captured and later wrote in a letter to his father, “the Yanks… took us to Washington and kept us about 13 days… treated us with great respect, give us plenty to eat…”
The flag he was captured with is now on display at the NC Museum of History.
The 18th NC Infantry Regiment flag captured by Union forces at the Battle of Chancellorsville and now on display at the North Carolina Museum of History
We also found a discussion board at Authentic Campaigner Website & Forums, discussing the NYHS image here, and whether the men were actually taking an oath or possibly just, as someone named froghunter suggested, at a “conclusion of Sunday school class with a hand holding prayer. They could be Methodists.”
Poster yeoman stated the image was also printed in The Photographic History of the Civil War: in ten volumes (1911), Volume 3 and that a low res version of the book is available online, here where the caption states, The Last Confederate Prisoners Take the Oath at Pt. Lookout.
Todd Watts said they couldn’t have been the last group, as the book says the photo was taken in, “late April” and he has, “a copy of my ancestor’s oath of allegiance taken at Point Lookout in June, 1865. So this particular group, if photographed in April is not the final group to take the oath there.”
NYHS and the Library of Congress say June 30 and the 1911 book says late April. yeoman finally replies, “As far as being free from factual error… horseshoes and hand grenades.”
We agree. Accounts from that time don’t always match up. Even from eyewitnesses like Colonel Barry and Andrew Proffit.
But, we think they are, in fact, the last group from Pt. Lookout.
Image at New-York Historical SocietyImage from Photographic History of the Civil War (From a double page spread)
Look closely at the two photos: same men, same time, same poses, down to the folds of their clothes- Except for behind the judge’s bench. In the book, there are two men standing behind the bench and in the NYHS image, there’s only one. Two different shots. Someone stood up (or sat down) but nobody else moved. They didn’t as much as shift their weight or change their stance. Big deal?
In those days, two shots that close together in time, was a big deal- possibly requiring two cameras with two photographers or more probably one, really fast photographer wanting to get an important shot.
A shot like the last group to leave the prison.
Imaging Specialists reproduced a set of A Photographic History… in the 1990’s for a leather-bound edition by a national publisher. We dismantled two sets of original 1911 books acquired from a library in Minnesota and shot the actual pages on our cameras, so we have a little history with this historical title.
We hope to include at least one version of the Point Lookout event in this very interesting book, Four Brothers in Gray.
Imaging Specialists is working with the Alleghany Historical – Genealogical Society on its award-winning series, Alleghany Memories. The series won a Paul Green Multimedia Award for the premier episode that featured Pauline Jolly and Mildred Torney- both former county librarians.
The current episode features an interview with Bobby Irwin, Vietnam-era Marine combat photographer and videographer, and was produced in conjunction with the Walter Frank Osborne, Jr. Deatachment 1298 Marine Corps League from Sparta, North Carolina.
ISI produced titles and a short slide show of Mr. Irwin’s images that airs at the end of the episode. The episode is available for viewing, online, at actv.me, Alleghany Community Television’s new streaming site.
The program is the first of four produced with the Marine Corps League and is hosted by current Commandant, John Irwin. Subsequent episodes will feature interviews of J.T. Pardue, Bill Sebastian and Charles Pugh- all members of the local detachment.
ISI is proud to be able to have a part in this interesting and historic series.
The newest edition of Alleghany County Cemeteries through 1986, available now at the Sparta Store
Imaging Specialists has reworked the Alleghany Cemeteries book to make it easier to use and more sturdy in the latest edition, available now. As the supply of the original books dwindled, the Alleghany Historical – Genealogical Society board knew changes had to be made.
The 8.5″ x 11″ books were originally perfect-bound (or paperback style binding) on the short dimension making them cumbersome to use as they were over 22″ wide when fully opened. This configuration also stressed the binding so much that most of the books’ spines would eventually break apart, releasing pages or groups of pages.
Even with these structural problems, the book has been in demand since it was introduced in 1986. The Historical Society at that time did such a good job of documenting existing cemeteries that their effort has become one of the most useful and respected resources ever produced by AHGS. The Society gets regular requests for an updated version or a second volume- a task that would probably exceed the original project as names and information for the past 27 years would have to be researched and added.
The original edition, edited by Lou Reed Landreth with “Computerization” by Lynn Lambert, and help from Elvira Crouse, Pearl Reeves and Marvie Shelor- and probably every able bodied volunteer they could muster- was printed by New River Graphics in 1988.
The new edition will be printed, “on-demand” as orders come in. In this way the society won’t have to initiate a traditional press run, or raise thousands of dollars in up-front production costs, or incur subsequent years of storage costs.
On-demand pricing is higher per unit, but it makes sense for a non-profit organization so that operating funds aren’t tied up in a long term inventory.
Spiral binding will allow field researchers to more easily keep their place whether they are at a single page or looking at a double page spread, without stress to the binding. Thicker pages should also add to the book’s longevity.
Pages from the first volume were individually scanned so the data is exactly as it appeared in the original.
Books are now available at the Sparta Store on Main Street in Sparta, North Carolina or here, online for $27 plus tax and shipping.
Alleghany Community Television, or ACTV, is now streaming content at ACTV.ME.
That’s right, those great, local shows you’ve been trying to catch will now be available for download to your own device at your convenience. ACTV has teamed with PegCentral and Imaging Specialists to present single episodes of participating programs on their site.
The new On Demand page will be available at www.actv.me – a new web address that should be easier to remember (and spell!) than the main site address, alleghanycommunitytelevision.com.
ACTV will soon begin uploading broadcast data to Skybest TV so that, as they standardize the schedule, viewers can plan for upcoming broadcasts. Metadata for individual episodes will be added including content, producers, show credits, run times, production dates, etc. and will be displayed online or on TV broadcast schedules.
Station Manager Charlie Scott – “The streaming ability we’ve gained with our latest equipment upgrade will allow our station to be accessed by anyone who isn’t able to see us on our affiliate stations. The systems that presently air ACTV content include Alleghany Cablevision, Skybest TV, Surry TV and WilkesTelecommunications. Those systems deliver ACTV to roughly 7000 households in the mountain region and cover a viewing area ranging from around Lewisville, North Carolina, almost to Johnson City, Tennessee.”
The Internet, however, reaches viewers outside the Triad to Tri-City area. Now, of course, ACTV content will be available to the entire planet. It’s hard to say what browsers in Britain will think about a Sparta Town Council Meeting, or how the Alleghany County Extension Office Cooking Show will affect a surfer in South Africa, but you can be sure these and other shows will have an audience.
Imaging Specialists is pleased to be working with Alleghany Community Television in their efforts to inform and entertain the public- from Piney Creek to Prague, from Turkey to Turkey Knob!
