President’s Letter
It was a novel experience to open the front door and step into the front hall at Happy Retreat, the first hot day of many hot days this summer and to feel the cool breeze blowing from the ducts of our new HVAC system. Never before in its 224 year history has Happy Retreat had central air conditioning.
This allowed us to host two events in the house in August. The first was a private luncheon and the second was the Appalachian Chamber Music Festival’s Adult Intensive Chamber Music Workshop. We hosted this same Workshop the year the Festival began in 2021 without air conditioning. Even though the weather that weekend was relatively mild, floor fans were not sufficient to keep things comfortable. We did not offer (nor were we asked) to host the Workshop again until this year, when we were able keep the students cool and their instruments in tune.
Now, for the first time, we are able to schedule events in the house year-round. Thank you, again, to the many supporters who helped us match the Save America’s Treasures grant that made the new HVAC system possible. Our next goal is to finish the catering kitchen which will allow us to take full advantage of the house as an event venue.
This issue details the results of the final report of Jane Ailes on the African-American history of Happy Retreat during the property’s ownership by the Washington and Hammond families. Her research covers the period from 1747, the year Charles Washington’s older half-brother Lawrence first purchased land in what is now Jefferson County, West Virginia, until 1837, the year Happy Retreat was sold by George Washington Hammond.
Jane Ailes’s scrupulously detailed report is 79 pages long. First, it details history of the ownership of Happy Retreat by the Washington and Hammond families in order to establish a framework for the history of the people enslaved by those families. Second, the report pieces together through deeds, leases and other legal documents and through private family records, including family Bibles, the identities of those enslaved. This research is an important part of telling the full history of Happy Retreat. Her research was made possible, in part, by a grant from the West Virginia Humanities Council. We will pursue another grant to allow her to research the period from 1837 through Emancipation in 1863 and from then into the 20th Century.
Walter Washington
President