By: Spencer Kuchle
Serving with the Upshur County Historical Society and the Randolph County Museum
I came to AFNHA AmeriCorps in 2019 from Washington, DC, where I held a two-year post-doctoral appointment in the Education Department of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. During my first year with AmeriCorps, I served within the Heritage Community Development Program as a museum associate at the Randolph County Museum (RCM) in Beverly and as an interpretive coordinator for 4-H Camp Pioneer, where I conducted oral histories, wrote grants, and completed a digital archives project. Both experiences broadened my skills in museum collections, archives, curation, and community engagement.
This year, I have the privilege of continuing my work at RCM and have added a new site⸺ the Upshur County Historical Society (UCHS) in Buckhannon to my service. There are exciting synergies between my work at the museum and historical society that have emerged from my research and exhibit preparation. In the fall, I wrote and submitted a successful grant proposal for funding from The West Virginia Humanities Council to support exhibition development. The exhibit, If These Walls Could Talk, showcases the multiple ways the Blackman-Bosworth building, which has housed the Randolph County Museum since 1972, has contributed to the history and culture of Randolph County.
Built in 1828 by enslaved individuals on a lot purchased by David Blackman, the building was the first commercial brick structure in Beverly.[i] Blackman used the space to operate a general store, selling a variety of household and farming goods. Yet, it also served as a social hub where people gathered to talk politics, catch up with neighbors, and share news of the day. Four decades later, Blackman’s store played a pivotal role in the Civil War when it became a Federal commissary after the Union victory at the Battle of Rich Mountain in July of 1861. Civil War graffiti by soldiers can be found on the second story walls of the building, providing insights into the humor and politics of the period, and an underground vault, accessible by a trap door in the floor of a room at the back of the building, has been a source for Civil War relics. At the end of the war, Beverly was the county seat, and the Blackman Store played the additional role of housing town records.[ii]
In 1881, the store was sold to Squire Newton Bosworth, one of prominent town doctor Squire Bosworth’s ten children and became known as S N Bosworth Cheap Cash Store. Because Bosworth was Beverly’s postmaster, the building was also used as a post office. It subsequently served as a print shop, where the Randolph Enterprise Newspaper was first published, and as a temporary courthouse, following a fire in 1897 that damaged the new courthouse. The store was operated by the Bosworth family through the 1920s, when the building was converted to a storage facility.
During the 1930s, the building functioned as a recreational center for the National Youth Administration, a New Deal agency established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as part of the Works Progress Administration to provide work and education for young people between the ages of 16 and 25. I was particularly interested in the building’s role in the WPA, given that my current research at UCHS is devoted to chronicling the impact of the WPA on Upshur County, with a focus on the contributions of Beatrice Arnold Giffin. Giffin, who led the Historical Records Survey under the WPA’s Federal Writer’s Project, was the granddaughter of Laura Jackson Arnold, an ardent Unionist, despite being the sister of Stonewall Jackson, who played a leadership role in the Confederate army. Laura Jackson and her husband, Jonathan Arnold, lived in Beverly during the Civil War, before Laura moved to Buckhannon to live with her daughter-in-law, Lizzie Arnold, who built a 20-room house upon her husband Stark’s death.
Finding forgotten bits of history and identifying connections among people across time that are grounded in place, while undertaking collections and curatorial work, is one of the most gratifying aspects of my AmeriCorp’s service. Sharing the emerging narratives that highlight these discoveries, through newsletters, journals, blog posts, and videos, is equally fulfilling, and I look forward to continuing the work of celebrating the richness of the culture in Randolph and Upshur Counties, while advancing public history.
[i] Blackman-Bosworth Store, National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination Form, www.wvculture.org.
[ii] Blackman-Bosworth Store, National Register.
