By Ed Simmons, Jr.
cpreporter@lcs.net
The faces of 15 men and women who figured strongly in Caroline and Virginia history will be permanently on view at the Historic Portrait Gallery, opening July 3 in Port Royal at Town Hall.
The gallery opening at 1 p.m. this Saturday is the culmination of Port Royal's Independence Day Celebration. Featured in the day's festivities will be the U.S. Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps which performs at the White House. The portraits are the gift of Caroline historian and Smithsonian curator emeritus Herbert Ridgeway Collins. Three more Port Royal museums are planned – Native American, transportation and Virginia history.
One of the portraits, that of Rev. Jonathan Boucher, pastor of the town's St. Peters Episcopal, is on loan from the nearby church. History records that Rev. Boucher had a falling out with his friend George Washington on the eve of the Revolutionary War. Fleeing to England, he would write Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution, dedicating it to Washington and renewing their friendship, though he never returned to Caroline. A sixteenth portrait, of Pocahontas, is also on loan. She saved the life of the captured Captain John Smith who was transported through Caroline to face Chief Powhatan.
The gallery also displays the portraits of two Revolutionary War heroes, John Penn who signed the Declaration of Independence, and General William Woodford who at the head of Virginia's troops drove royal governor Lord Dunmore and his forces out of Virginia. Two heroes of the Civil War also gaze from the gallery walls, Confederate General John Bankhead Magruder of Port Royal and Captain Sally Tompkins, CSA. Magruder's 10,000-man army battled Gen. George McClellan's 100,000-man force for a month, gaining time for the successful defense of Richmond in the Peninsular Campaign of 1862.
"Captain Sally" as she was known, founded and administered the Robertson Hospital for wounded soldiers at Main and Third Streets in Richmond. Though the causes of infection were not then fully understood, her insistence on cleanliness is credited with saving the lives of hundreds. After the war, she frequently stayed with her cousins the Lightfoots at "Riverview" in Port Royal on Water Street and was owner of the home from 1895 to 1906. Rev. James Cyrus' portrait is also on display at the new gallery. The treasurer of the National Baptist Convention, he was pastor of Shiloh Baptist in Port Royal in the early 1890s and previously was pastor at Mt. Dew Baptist at Moss Neck and Bethlehem Baptist near Mica, at what is now Fort A.P. Hill. Rev. Cyrus was postmaster of Port Royal from 1882 to 1885, and the second African American elected to the Port Royal Board of Trustees. Also appearing are the portraits of Judge John Tayloe Lomax, Edmund Pendleton, John Taylor, Colonel John Baylor, James Hoge Tyler, Jourdan Woolfolk, George Rogers Clark, Richard Henry Buckner and George Fitzhugh.
Port Royal's Independence Day Celebration begins at 10 a.m. this Saturday and features Revolutionary gentleman Michael Newman reading the Declaration of Independence, St. Andrew's Legion Pipes and Drums, the Port Royal Militia, 18th Century dancing, a concert of patriotic music and free surrey rides about the town. Food and beverages will be available.