Excerpt from Trist’s letter

Correspondence of Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, 1810-1861, Accession #38-584, 9090, 9090-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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{1} A Guide to the John H. Hunter Papers, Accession Number 166, A Collection in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Accessed June 23, 2010.

For more information about Hunter see Scope and Content Information in the Guide to the John H. Hunter Papers.

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Miscellaneous Letters and Documents Collection, Accession #MS-33, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.

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Sweet Springs (West Virginia), Hotel Registers covering the years 1870-72, 1884-86, 1888, 1897, 1908, 2 volumes, Accession #421, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

The page from a Sweet Springs ledger shows the charges from June 30 to October 1, 1855 for Dr. Oliver Bierne. He paid for the boarding of himself, daughters, nieces, horses, servants, and various ladies. He also was charged for champagne and two decks of cards.

Notes

• Oren F. Morton, A History of Monroe County, West Virginia, Staunton, Va.: McClure Company, 1916. (Also available on Google Books)
• Mary S. Venable, “Virginia Boundary Line ‘Dip’ Traced to Ancient Rivalry,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 16, 1936.

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McLaughlin-Redd papers, 177?-1867, Accession #38-470, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Dr. Henry Howard {1}

Henry Howard was born in 1792 in Maryland, graduated with a degree in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania, and practiced medicine in Maryland before joining the University of Virginia faculty in 1839 where he taught Medicine, Physiology, Obstetrics, and Medical Jurisprudence. He retired from teaching in 1867.

This letter written by Dr. Howard is from Thomas Goode’s book The Invalid’s Guide to the Virginia Hot Springs, and is included in Dr. Burke’s book. It indicates that Dr. Goode solicited correspondence from people who had experiences at the Hot Springs. Dr. Howard wrote a masterful response in which he alternately praised the waters and urged caution, giving reasons why the treatment might fail. While he advised his patients with certain ailments to avail themselves of the Hot Springs for relief, he said that proper preparation and regimen were necessary for success. He wrote that the potency of the waters could cause harm as well as benefit, a knowledgeable doctor’s advice was essential, and the very act of getting to the location could make a patient worse.

University of Virginia, Dec. 10, 1841.
Dr. Thomas Goode:
Dear Sir, — I have just received your letter of the 7th inst., soliciting my opinion and experience of the remedial effects of the waters of the Hot Springs in chronic diarrhea and difficult menstruation.
In reply to your inquiry, I may state that for many years, but most particularly for the last ten, and during my residence in Baltimore, I have advised all my patients who were afflicted with chronic diarrhea or painful menstruation, that resisted medical treatment, to avail themselves of the medical powers of the Hot Springs; and I do not now recollect of an instance, when the proper preparatory measures and indispensable auxiliary regimen to the use of the Baths were strictly observed and persevered in, in which my expectations of the efficacy of the waters were disappointed.
It is true that a few cases have occurred in which the patient returned to me without receiving any relief, and some have claimed my attention in which the disease appeared aggravated: but in all these cases it was ascertained, that either the preparatory measures necessary to be adopted previous to taking the baths, or the auxiliary regimen to be used simultaneously with bathing, were not rigidly adhered to.
I feel constrained by the result of my observation and experience during my visit to the Hot Springs, to state, that I believe that those waters are so potent for injury as well as benefit to those afflicted with chronic diarrhea or painful menstruation, that none such should use them without the advice of a physician, conversant with their qualities. And physicians, when recommending this watering-place to their patients, should make them aware, that travelling and its incidents sometimes convert chronic into acute affectations, and that a regimen and course of medical treatment, very proper in the former state, may be highly improper in the latter condition.
I am respectfully yours,
H. Howard, M.D. {Goode, 60-1}

Thomas Goode, The Invalid’s Guide to the Virginia Hot Springs, Richmond: P.D. Bernard, 1846.

Image Credits

{1} University of Virginia Visual History Collection, Image Filename: prints16157. Accessed July 21, 2009.

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Papers of Alexander Garrett, 1812-1848, Accession #860, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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The document asks,

“On what principle is the sale of the Hot Springs to be set aside? None recognized by the courts of Virginia. We’ve seen there was no fraud in the representatives of Goode, none therefore for the purchasers to participate in, and it could only be because of such fraud and such participation that the sale could be set aside.” {p. 13}

The document also states,

“But the property was subject of the widow’s dower, or the substitute for it –her jointure–or both. So that the available value for payment of debts was not $64,000. Valued subject to her dower, it might have been set down at $10,000 or $15,000 less. Such was the property, as rated in peace. That it was of equal value in war, no man in his senses will contend. It was unproductive, deserted, far off from the world and the military centres, in a valley open to military raiders, deserters and stragglers–perishable. Of the assessed value (64,000) nearly one half, viz: $31,000, was set down for buildings, which, with all the furniture in them, might be destroyed in a few hours under the plea of military necessity, as the valley was laid waste by Sheridan under General Grant’s orders; or, in the licentiousness of the time, it might suit marauders and plunderers to fire it.” {p. 15}

Tardy, defendant. Cameron’s ex’ix v. Goode’s ex’r, &c. Note for Tardy and others, defendants. [N.p., 186-?] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Dr. James L. Cabell. University of Virginia Visual History Collection, Image Filename: prints 10046. Accessed July 21, 2009.

Dr. James L. Cabell (1813-1889), the resident physician at Hot Springs, graduated from the University of Virginia in 1833 and obtained his M.D. degree at the University of Maryland in 1834. After studying in Paris, he returned to the University of Virginia where he became a Professor of Anatomy and Surgery. At the time this account was published he was the most senior faculty member at the University. He taught in the medical school for over 50 years.

The account describes the boiler baths, sulphur baths, hot spout baths, mud bath, octagon bath, warm bath, ladies’ pleasure bath, gentlemen’s pleasure bath, and ferruginous or chalybeate alum water. Cabell’s treatise is on the hygienic and therapeutic effects of thermal baths and details the specific diseases that the baths are suited to treat.

The advertisement shows that the owners of the Hot Springs wanted to attract not just invalids who were seeking healing from their various ailments, but also pleasure seekers and families who would appreciate a pleasant, healthy summer home with a delightful climate, beautiful scenery, and various amusements.

The second 50 pages of the book are “Letters from Physicians and Report of Cases Cured at the Hot Springs.”

J. L. Cabell, An account of the Hot Springs, Bath County, Va, [Richmond?] : S.C. Tardy, 1873 (Richmond : Clemmitt & Jones), Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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John R. Page, Concerning Hot Springs of Virginia, [Richmond]: I.N. Jones, Print., [1894] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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The composition of this water is essentially different from all the others, and we think it establishes beyond doubt the possession of curative powers previously ascertained by experience. William Burke

This is the frontispiece from a book about a visit in the summer of 1837 to the Red Sulphur Springs by Henry Huntt. {1}

William Burke on the Red Sulphur Springs.

Edward Beyer’s print published in 1857. {2}

The Red Sulphur Springs are located in Monroe County in what is now West Virginia, and are the furthest west and south of all the springs written about by Dr. Burke in his 1846 book. He described the gorge where the springs are located as being gloomy with only a rude shelter over the springs and several comfortless, windowless cabins when he first visited in 1829. He purchased the springs in 1832 and made many improvements before surrendering possession of the property in 1841. By the time he wrote his book, the Red Sulphur was second only to the White Sulphur in terms of length of the season, overall number of visitors, and the 350 people who could be accommodated at any given time in the hotel and the multiple ranges of beautiful buildings.

Burke said the most noteworthy structure was the Pavilion over the springs. Constructed shortly after his first visit, the pavilion dome was 50 feet above the water level of the springs and was supported by 12 Ionic columns. He devoted more than a third of the 394 pages of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia to these springs and explained that the uneven treatment of the different springs was a result of the extraordinary, curative powers of the water at Red Sulphur so that, “a more extensive notice than we have given of the other Springs is not only necessary but indispensable to a just estimate of its peculiar action on the human system.” {Burke, 187}

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Red Sulphur Springs.

“The idle stories which he will hear that this water has been injured by the writer [Burke], by blowing the rock with gunpowder, is a base fabrication, and that there is no depreciation, as a glance at the analysis will show; but that it is pure and unadulterated as the virgin snow on the summit of the Andes. We, who know, assert this; and we are, surely, as worthy of credit as the miserable retailers of such wicked falsehoods.” { Burke, 323}

Dr. Burke quoted a number of sources to substantiate the medical usefulness of Red Sulphur Springs. He noted that William Rogers, who did an analysis in the mid 1830s, wrote “you may … urge particularly the peculiar value of the water in pulmonary disease.” His inclusion of a more extensive analysis, 20 pages in length, by Augustus A. Hayes from the Roxbury Laboratory near Boston in 1842, also lauded the medical importance of the water.

Dr. Burke incorporated the text of a pamphlet, A Visit to the Red Sulphur Springs of Virginia, during the Summer of 1837, written by Henry Huntt who served as physician to several presidents of the United States. Huntt testified, “It [the Red Sulphur Springs] has been considered peculiarly adapted to the cure of pulmonary diseases, and it is true that it has a most beneficial effect in most cases of this disease; but its good effects equally extend to all cases of subacute inflammation, whether seated in the stomach, liver, spleen, intestines, kidneys, bladder, and most particularly in the mucous membrane.” {Burke, 217}

It is just about as reasonable to expect this [that a one-time cure would protect the affected organ thereafter], as that, being upset in a coach and having a limb fractured, should secure a man from being upset a second time and having his neck broken.” {Burke, 218}

Huntt spent three weeks in the summer of 1837 at Red Sulphur Springs where he sought relief from various symptoms including a cough, chills and fever, and “morbid” sputum. Huntt’s death the following year evidently caused some controversy about the effectiveness of the Spring as Dr. Burke himself wrote, “Will it be objected, as we are informed it has been objected, that he [Huntt] subsequently died of the disease for the cure of which he had so highly eulogized this water? Surely every medical man ought to know that where there is a predisposition to disease of any organ, an actual lesion of that organ, though cured, increases that predisposition, and that it is expecting too much of a medicine, not only to cure the existing disease, but to secure the organ from any future recurrence of that disease.” {Burke, 217-8}

Burke’s major focus was the value of Red Sulphur Springs for consumption, but he did not neglect other diseases including laryngitis, bronchitis, chronic pleurisy, pneumonia, hypertrophy of the heart, kidney and bladder diseases, menstrual disorders, liver diseases, and chronic diarrhea.

Dr. Burke gave specific directions for bleeding of the sublingual vein in acute laryngitis and in “putrid sore throat.” His instructions for the procedure were, “Place the patient in a chair in a reclining posture, seize the tip of his tongue by the medium of a towel, strike the vein with a spring lancet, and the operation is over.” He admitted to having difficulty with this maneuver in infants, but in four year old children he succeeded by the following method: “We apply a powerful mustard plaster to the throat, and when it stings severely, we make a bargain with the child to take it off, provided he will put out his tongue and permit us to perform the operation—he promises, and we remove the plaster, with the understanding that if he breaks his promise we again put it on. We soothe the irritated surface by cooling applications, gain the child’s confidence, and he thrusts out his little tongue without hesitation.” {Burke, 296-98}

A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia by Henry Huntt.

The forest trees of the eastern and western mountains, have been cut down by Mr. Burke, the present worthy proprietor of the Spring, so that this delightful glen enjoys the purifying influence of the sun from seven o’clock in the morning until near five in the afternoon, which makes the grounds much drier than they formerly were, and less liable to morning fogs. Regular stages, or post coaches, arrive here daily, both from the north and south. It is but justice to the amicable and intelligent proprietor, to say, that the improvements he has made, within the short period of four years since he has had the control, give assurance that, should he live a few years longer, the Red Sulphur Spring will not be excelled by any of the numerous places of resort among the salubrious mountains of the Old Dominion, either in magnificence of scenery, beauty, taste, comfort or health. {Huntt, 19}

Physician to Presidents James Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson, Henry Huntt maintained an active practice among the citizens of Washington D.C. In March 1837 he “was attacked with a slight hemorrhage from the lungs, attended with other symptoms indicating a diseased state of those important organs.” Eventually he lost 20 pounds and experienced an “increased cough, copious, morbid expectoration, hectic chills, fever, and night sweats.” So in the middle of July 1837 he traveled from Washington to Red Sulphur Springs where he found the buildings “spacious and conveniently arranged” and the servants “prompt and obedient.” Dr. Huntt drank the spring water, eventually increasing his consumption to 12 glasses a day. He was unexpectedly called home after three weeks, but wrote that the use of the water led to the “manifest alleviation of the most pressing symptoms of my complaint.” His health continued to be better for months after he departed Red Sulphur Springs, and he credited the water. However, a little more than a year later, on September 21, 1838, he died and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery.

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

The morning was spent much as usual, for here one day telleth for another. I believe I might almost copy any one journal, and it would do for any other day. The same routine of walking to the spring, working a little, talking a little, or rather a great deal, frequently reading a little, and speaking to passing acquaintances, passes off the time. Grace Fenton Hunter

The diary of Grace Fenton Hunter: This journal was written in 1838 by the daughter of Muscoe Garnett Hunter and Grace Fenton Garnett. She was born August 4th, 1817, lived at Elmwood in Essex County, Virginia, and probably died in 1839 or 1840. {3} Hunter describes her six weeks at the Red Sulphur Springs as monotonous days of reading, visiting, going to the spring, walking, riding, and resting. She mentions two deaths that occurred at the Red Sulphur during her visit. She writes of her cough, toothache, and general weakness and debility. Dr. and Mrs. Burke are frequently mentioned. She did not think the time at the spring was profitable for her health and was glad when her stay there was nearing an end.

Letter from Grace Fenton Hunter, 1838: Hunter’s letter is more positive than her diary entry, both written on her 21st birthday and the day after. She writes in her diary that she feels badly and is melancholy with thoughts of hopes overthrown and wasted time. By contrast, the letter discusses the health of Hunter and her companions as seemingly better and more mundane topics such as the weather, food, and people at the springs and at home. Both mention the death of Mrs. Nesbitt.

Additional Information:

• Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia by William Burke: Printed in 1860, Burke’s 24 page book describes how to best travel to the springs, an analysis of the water, diseases that are improved by a visit to the Red Sulphur Springs, and testimonial letters.
• Henry Huntt: This obituary originally from The National Intelligencer, October 1, 1838, gives an account of Huntt’s medical career.
• Monroe County official tourism site: The County site states that nothing remains of the old Red Sulphur Springs except for the stone spring enclosure.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/ Search for Red Sulphur, and see two images of Red Sulphur Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} Henry Huntt, A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, during the summer of 1837. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1839: frontispiece. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• Henry Huntt, A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1839.

Note that Grace’s full name is variously given by the University of Virginia Library as 1) Grace Fenton Hunter Garnett, 1817-1839, in Papers of the Hunter and Garnett families VIRGO Catalog record);  2) Grace Fenton (Garnett) Hunter, in the online guide for the Papers of the Hunter-Garnett Family; and 3) Grace Fenton Garnett, 1817-1839, in the Fourteenth Annual Report on Historical Collections, University of Virginia Library, for the Year 1943-44, p 24-5. However, the Virginia Historical Society (VHS) gives her name as Grace Fenton Hunter with a death date of 1840. The VHS also says the mother of Grace Fenton Hunter is Grace Fenton Garnett Hunter which helps explain some of the name confusion. Both the VIRGO record and the Annual Report indicate that Hunter’s main visit was to White Sulphur Springs. She did spend several days there, but according to her diary entries, the bulk of her time was at Red Sulphur Springs.

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… We set off next day by one in the morning, and reached the White Sulphur in the evening, we breakfasted at the Warm Spring and I enjoyed greatly the exceedingly beautiful, and sublime, view from the Warm Spring mountain, which cannot be described by words. I saw many wild flowers today with which I am unacquainted, some of which were beautiful. The various aspects of the different ridges of mountains, furnished a subject of unwearying interest, I never before saw the clouds lying on the mountain tops, or the rain falling in the valleys between whilst the next mountain reflected back the rays of the sun, occasionally perhaps interrupted by a shadow, thrown like a thin veil across a portion of it. Along the road mingled with our own fine forest trees, were the cucumber tree, the feather spruce pine, with the yellow pine, the buck’s eye, cypress hemlock fir, and balm of Gilead, with other beautiful plants which I did not know. The White Sulphur, is a pretty green looking spot, with some fine old oaks, and other trees scattered about, but the grounds very little improved. We were shown into a miserable dirty apartment, with three single beds, immediately above a store, apothecary’s shop with black legs, and drinkers for our neighbors, and no ladies near, hoping to go on next day, we made the best of it. About two o’clock at night we were awakened by music from the neighbouring room, at first it was very sweet, one of the performers having an unusually fine voice, after a while however they became very boisterous, and sang drinking songs. After drinking song, jumping, clapping, singing all together and making themselves as disagreable as possible. Much to our sorrow, we found the stage full, and were unable to quit the next day.

At breakfast saw Mrs. Metier, the Somaxes, and Miss Tucker, the day passed very drearily as we found our room exceedingly hot, and unpleasant, and had no amusement whatever. … I forgot to mention we looked at the Hot Springs, as we passed by them.

… On Sunday [July 5, 1838] we again took our seats in the stage, and though I was sorry to spend a Sunday in travelling was but too happy to leave the W[hite]. S[ulpur]. The country is more solid and picturesque as you proceed towards the red sulphur, we dined at the salt s- but did not drink the water. At the salt sulphur one of our fellow passengers quitted us (Mr. Stewart) the other a stage contractor, (who used many strange works, and who shewed us a place where the worst accident, he ever saw happened, that is, it would have been the worst had it happened) left us a little before, we soon found we had rotten harness, to carry us over the most dangerous road we have travelled, but despite it, reached the Red. S. in safety after sunset. It is a very pretty romantic looking place as you look down many hundred feet upon it from the stage road, the approach has been so often described I will not attempt it again. We were given a room adjoining the ball room the night of our arrival, an airy apartment, above the village. The next morning was one of confusion spent in removing into Philadelphia row, where we have a small double cabin No 7.

On Tuesday I was seized with a fit of the tooth-ache, and great debility. On Monday evening, we went in the ball room, by Mr. Carusi’s invitation, where we heard some good music.

…My cough grew worse, and very troublesome whilst I was at the White Sulphur, and since I quitted that place it has continued so, if I may judge from a few days experience, as far as these waters are to benefit me, I have taken the journey for nothing, I have been suffering almost constantly, with pain in my face, and debility, but courage, complaining is useless. Our principle amusement has been walking to the nine-pin alley, as it is the most level walk.

19th. Walked before breakfast to the spring, and the nine-pin alley, where an old gentleman insisted upon setting up the pins, and Mamma, Sister M., and myself attempting to upset them. I suppose seeing our forlorn condition without an acquaintance, he wished to amuse as far as he could, poor man, he little guessed how unsuccessful he was. I should judge from the appearance of most persons here that the company is almost wholly composed of invalids. I find my weakness or sickness, or something disposes me very much to sleep, but hope when the drought breaks up, that we shall have more bracing weather, the heat is intense. I work a little, read a little, sleep, but find it impossible to settle myself to any one employment. In the evening after drinking some of the water, walked up the mountain to a platform, from which there is a pretty view of the valley. In the morning the walk would have been beyond my powers.

…Rose rather late, having been disturbed during the night by my cough, after walking to the spring, took our accustomed walk to the nine pin alley, and promenaded the piassa on my return until breakfast. During the course of the morning Dr. B. brought us some old books from the Burke’s Library.

…20th. This morning as usual visited the spring. … Mrs. Burke, too, this morning called upon us, she seems a sensible woman, talkative, and more agreeable than the generality of persons. I hope this new channel of communication will prove of more avail, to us than any we have yet met with. … There was a great alarm of fire at night, which turned out to be a window curtain, which had blazed up.

21st. This morning, the earlier part at least was passed as usual. Mrs. Burke, came to get some one to introduce her to Mrs. Fowles, sat a while in that lady’s room. A little later in the morning, we paid Mrs. B. A visit in her own room, she reminds me much, of a queen bee, in her manner of moving about. She and her daughter gave us some music, her voice, would have been quite sweet had she left it, as nature made it.

… Tuesday [July 24th] I have been very lazy about rising since I have been here, though I am up long enough before breakfast, to visit the spring, and sometimes to read, for some time. … I felt very badly today, and spent the greater part of the morning, and evening reading on the bed. We, this afternoon, accepted Mrs. Alexander’s kind offer of her carriage, (Mamma would not ride) and took a very pleasant ride, the road for some distance lay along the margin of a creek, and the country was very pretty through which we passed. … Hearing from home, and reading the Abbot, are two of the greatest pleasures; or perhaps, the only real pleasures I have enjoyed, since I have been here. Nothing could be more monotonous than the time spent here, and I fear as far as I am concerned unprofitable, both as respects mind and body, for besides feeling sick, and inert, I cannot feel as if I was settled or give myself up, to any useful employment. I am too stupid, so dull, and often so sleepy, I hardly know what to think of myself.

…Had a pleasant ride this evening, with the two Mrs. Fowlers. I wish the roads about here were better as the country seems a very pretty one. The Fowlers came at night to take leave, and I feel quite sorry to part with them. I was quite sick, and obliged to lie on the bed in my wrapper, until I fairly went to bed, at 4 o’clock.

Thursday. The weather again very warm, rose late, and after breakfast, received a visit from Mrs. Burke, who invited me to bring my work and sit with during any morning, which I think would be rather a pleasant arrangement, during the heat of the day. Some other visitors have also called, but none whom I cared for. I fancy seeing so many persons, the reverse of clever, makes me dull.

…Friday. Another intensely warm morning, my strength seems sinking before the weather. took a short ride with the Baynhoms, and Miss Cocke, in Mrs. Staples carriage. After which read in Ivanhoe, and worked, and wrote, but did not much of either at a time. I feel the greatest desire to see home again, though I hope to be able to remain without complaining, the appointed time.

…Monday. When we returned from the spring, heard prayers in Mrs. Sydneys room. This has been a day of some confusion, so many going out, and coming in around us. Paid a visit to Mrs. Burke, who was out.

Tuesday. Rose rather earlier than usual, but made no profitable use of my time, as much of it was spent in fidgeting, took the common walk to the spring. After breakfast sat awhile in my room then Dr. B. with Sister M. and myself visited Mrs. Burke, whom we found at home, she played and sang for us, and was as peculiar as usual. She insists on our visiting some of her Richmond friends tomorrow, and tells us five great belles are expected, whom she desires should be attended to. We worked and read some in the morning, and in the evening we talked until it was cool enough to walk, when Dr. and Mrs. B. with Sister M. went to a store. Mamma, Mr. Baylor, and I took a walk to the nine pins alley, on our return we found Miss Lomax awaiting us, who sat until supper, after which Mamma, Mr. B. and myself again walked, we took a very pretty walk around the mountain, and to the top.

…August 1st. Wednesday. Rose unusually late, after breakfast we all took a walk. … Mrs. Burke also called. Whilst in company I was tolerable busy, with my needle and since have been engaged in writing. In the afternoon read, and worked until five o’clock when we rode several miles, Mamma, Sister M. Dr. B. and myself. The scenery was very handsome, the same which I have seen before, only farther along the road. After tea, mamma, Sister M., Mr. Baylor and myself walked around the mountain to the nine pin alley.

At night as usual sat in the piazza. The nights now are beautiful, the moon being very brilliant, and the lights from the white buildings shining through the trees look quite romantic.

… Friday … I spent a bad night, but feel much the same. I rode out with Mrs. Winter, soon after breakfast, after which sat until late in the day, in our room, when Dr. B., Sister M. and I sallied forth, to visit Mrs. Burke, and get her to introduce us, to her four belles, who however refused to see company, and we returned probably as well contented as if we had. In the afternoon, Sister M., Dr. B., Mr. B., and myself paid a visit to the Lomaxes, whom we found in and whom returned our visit after tea. As usual spent the night in the piazza or rather, until bed time.

Saturday. 4th. This is my birthday, though I had forgotten it until Mamma, reminded me later in the day of the circumstances. How many melancholy feelings, and recollections it brings with it, of hopes overthrown, good resolutions, which have turned to nothing, of time misspent, and wasted, of twenty one years, in fact, which it grieves, and shocks me to look back upon, and I scarcely know, how those days which may yet remain for me, will be better. The day was passed much as usual, after breakfast, as we were sitting all together, we, Mrs. B. and I were invited to ride with Mrs. Winter, On our return read, and worked, as usual, but feeling badly did little of either. In the afternoon, worked, and talked until I was again invited to ride with Mrs. W., we had a tete a tete, and a cool ride. After returning went with Mr. B. to the spring, where Miss Lomax, R. B., Sister M. joined us, we called for Mamma, when we all walked to the nine-pin alley, the other ascending the mountain. Mamma, Mr. Baylor, and I, walked along the stage road. One letter tonight from home. A poor lady died here today.

Sunday. This day has passed as usual, little like Sunday, in the morning, Mrs. Nesbitt was buried, the funeral service was performed in the piazza, where there was quite a collection of persons, the scene was a very solemn one.

… Monday. The morning was spent much as usual, for here one day telleth for another. I believe I might almost copy any one journal, and it would do for any other day. The same routine of walking to the spring, working a little, talking a little, or rather a great deal, frequently reading a little, and speaking to passing acquaintances, passes off the time. Mrs. Burke called upon us, and I called on Misses Owen and Garland, nothing occurred, worth mentioning in either visit. We all sat together a good deal during the day. After tea Sister M. and I went to the Lomaxes, found Miss Anne sick. After our return Mamma, Mr. Baylor, and I walked around to the ten pin alley. At night we all sat in the porch.

Tuesday. This morning I was roused tolerably early, Mrs. and Dr. B. setting off for the Sweet Springs. Before breakfast as we were sitting in the piazza Mrs. Winter, invited me to ride around the circle with her, as we were going she pointed out a cabin where a gentleman had died the night before. Read the greater part of the morning, until drinking water time, when the gentlemen seated themselves with us until dinner was ready.

… Thursday … Spent much of the morning in lying down, as I felt very weak today. Mr. B. came in between twelve and one and sat until some time after dinner. As long as he was here, I sat up, after his departure Sister M. who had the toothache, laid down awhile, and then I took her place on the bed, for really I feel too weak to sit up long. At five o’clock went to the Spring.

… Friday …I stopped for a few moments with Mrs. Palmer, of Philadelphia, who had stopped me as I was starting to ride, to make inquiries concerning my cough, as she has a similar one.

Sunday I do not recollect very distinctly how this day passed, all the party excepting myself went to church I, feeling unusually sick, laid down, a large portion of the morning. the Bible was the only book I had an opportunity of reading during the day. We walked as an unusual thing to the ten pin alley, and sat there awhile in the evening. At night, Sister Martha went again to meeting, Mamma, Mr Baylor, and I, sat in the portico.

… Monday. Rose very early, and rode before breakfast, with Mrs. McGuire, whom we have lately become acquainted with, during the morning laid down a good deal, the ladies Mrs. McG. And Miss M. returned our visit, Mrs. Burke, came also to see us, as kind, as usual.

…Tuesday. … Paid a visit to the Burkes this morning, who played and sang for us. I worked and read rather more than usual today.

… Wednesday. Rose tolerable early, sat in the piazza, where I read until Mr. Baylor joined us, went to the spring, and then sat waiting for the all important second bell. After breakfast rode with Mrs. McG., father up the creek than I have ever been before, and found the body of water larger, than the part I usually see. Rested and read on my return, went to the spring and wrote.

… Thursday. Rose rather late, after breakfast rode with Mrs. McG. Then laid down, and read, until drinking time of day, then worked awhile, and wrote. … I was surprised to see Dr. and Mrs. B. who had just arrived in the stage pass the door, we were all quite pleased to meet again, and we all sat together until bed time.

… Tuesday … I feel glad to think there are few nights left for us at the Red Sulphur. Mr. Baylor told us good bye, before retiring, as he starts early in the morning for Essex.

Wednesday. Rose somewhat earlier than usual, walked in the piazza, to spring, wrote, and read before breakfast. How the history of this day was interrupted I know not. On Thursday started for Essex.

Papers of the Hunter and Garnett families, 1704-1940, Accession #38-45,863, 837, 1262, 1896, 4034, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Hunter-Garnett Family Papers, 1703-1970, Accession #38-45-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

We have lately formed an acquaintance with a lady in our row, a Mrs Winter, who has a carriage, and who has invited her to ride with her these two days, so I hope she will now have a chance of trying the effect of exercise added to the use of the water. This lady we understand is to stay some time, our first friend Mrs Alexander, who lent her carriage to our party sometimes, has gone with her husband to the Salt Sulphur I think Martha has certainly improved in health, and I hope will have reason to rejoice in having taken the trip, it has been a great thing to us, her being of the party. She has written home so often I tell her she will not leave us any thing to talk about when we get there. Mrs [P?] looks better than when she left home, but will not allow she has mended and indeed she seems but poorly yet. Our minister Mr Cooke left us this morning which I regret as I was pleased with both the sermons I heard him preach. and the only chance we have now of a preacher is a very indifferent one.

Aug 5th
It was so late last night when I got thus far, I concluded to put off finishing my letter until to day. We have been much disappointed both the last times we heard from Essex, to find Maria still had to go thro’ the suffering which we thought was certainly over. however I hope the next letter will contain the good news, I am sorry to hear of the great drought below, there has been just the same where ever I have been, even now when we have had a fine shower which refreshed things very much a few days ago, the earth is almost as dry as ever, one day last week Dr B bought some peaches the size of Indian walnuts about half ripe, and some plums in the same state, this is all we’[ve] seen like fruit since we got here, except black berries mixed [missing] very sour whortleberries brought to table. vegetables of course [missing] scarce and indifferent. we have however other things for dessert besides black berries. I thank you for looking after my affairs, and wish you wou’d tell my people if any of my trees bear peaches to take notice of the kind, as I don’t the kind of a single tree, please also enquire particularly about my old wom[an?] W Micon arrived here two days ago, and proposes to spend a week here, A Mrs Nesbitt from Georgia died in our building yesterday morning, and was buried this morning, the service was performed in the portico before the door of the room in which she died, by a baptist minister. I was present but heard no part of the funeral sermon. This is the second death that has happened at the place since we came here. The burying ground is about a mile off. many persons went out there in carriages but none in our party were of the number. There are two sons, a daughter, niece, all very young looking people, belonging to her family left here. I suppose they are wealthy as they brought three men servants with them. I did not even hear there was a sick lady in our row, until about two days before her death. tho’ her next neighbor assisted in nursing her. when we heard of her situation Martha & myself offered our services but were not called upon to do any thing. Mrs Brokenbrough is at the White Sulphur, and we have heard a report of her coming here but it is uncertain. Martha desires me to say she has written both to you and Muscoe, and Fenton to say she has received and answered all the letters that have been written to her your Aunt Betsy complains of not hearing from any of you since we left her. After I began this last night Dr. B. suggested that our letters not having reached Essex in the time they shou’d have done is owing to their not being directed via Fbg. two of his directed so have been duly received. the others probably were sent via Richmond which wou’d account for their detention. William says Louisa left them a short time before he wrote and that she has suffered so much lately with a pain in her back, she fears a spinal disease. R Tunstall has come down from her residence since she went up, and says there was no sickness on the plantation, tho’ many deaths amongst the irish laborers from heat & intemperance. Anna Maria had a fever when he left them, owing (as was supposed) to vaccination. Anna her daughters & Betsy, who is very poorly as usual at this season, are going to spend some days at Old Point. Richard, got home the 1st of July much [grownd?] improved in person & manners. Martha & F join me in much love to yourself Muscoe, and the rest of our dear friends with you and around you

Yrs affectly
GFH

Red Sul Springs Va
August 6, 1838

Mrs Maria H. Garnett.
Loretto.
Via Fredericksburg Essex.
Va

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The effects experienced after coming out of these baths, provided the patient has not indulged himself in them too long, are as remarkable as they are agreeable … There is an elasticity and buoyancy of body and spirit that makes one feel like leaping walls or clearing ditches at a single bound.    John J. Moorman

Edward Beyer’s print of the Red Sweet Springs published in 1857. {1}

William Burke on the Red Sweet Springs.

Only a mile from the Sweet Springs, the Red Sweet Springs in Alleghany County, Virginia, according to Dr. Burke’s book, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, had a beautiful situation “overlooking one of the most fertile and best cultivated farms in Virginia” and was owned by Richard Sampson and his son John. Dr. Burke had spent most of a summer at this establishment, also known as the Red Springs and the Sweet Chalybeate Springs, and testified to the “excellence of the fare, the comfort of the chambers, and the polite attention” of John Sampson and his manager. He was pleased with the design in terms of the convenience of the frame building that accommodated 60-70 people and boasted of a ball room, dining and bar-room, and two double-story galleries extending the length of the building. However, he was dismayed at the consequences of its location, “being thrown across the valley, as in the case of the Sweet Springs, it is destructive of the natural beauty of the locality.” Dr. Burke quoted a letter from John Sampson that described his new plans for improvements to the property as well as an assessment of the springs. Sampson noted that the various springs and pools ranged in temperature from 74 to 80 degrees and had a combined discharge of about 600 gallons a minute.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Red Sweet Springs.

One of the two bathing reservoirs was an octagon about 20 feet in diameter and boasted of “the finest spout imaginable,” a spout being a strong stream of water that could be directed to the particular part of the body most in need of soothing. Dr. Burke wrote that he did not stay in the bath longer than five minutes and gave a detailed description of the process undertaken upon leaving the water. He dried his head and neck while “a servant was engaged in rubbing the body with all his might.” After two minutes he wrote that a person felt “as if he could jump over the moon.”

Dr. Burke advised the Sampsons to “have two rubbers instead of one—a man and a small boy for the gentlemen; and a maid and little girl for ladies. After getting out of the bath, the person should be made to stand on a platform two feet square and about six inches elevated from the floor. In this should be some grooves to carry off the moisture from the feet, the junior rubber should then kneel down and with a coarse towel dry perfectly the legs and feet, while the bather and aid are employed on the head and trunk. With one rubber, the feet are apt to be left too long wet.” {Burke, 115-6}

Dr. Burke wrote that the bath was chalybeate or iron-containing and therefore a powerful agent in cases that benefit from a tonic treatment. He felt that 95% of the bathers would think the Red-Sweet Springs were more powerful as a tonic applied to the skin than the Sweet Springs. In terms of drinking water, he wrote, “its tonic property is acknowledged, and where such an agent is desirable it is not surpassed on the habitable globe.”

This lithograph was printed by P. S. Duval and Son, a prominent firm in Philadelphia. {2}

Seven pages are devoted to the skin, “that beautiful organ which, above all others, distinguishes man from the inferior animal creation, and which in lovely woman frequently attains such exquisite perfection as to place her second only to the angels.” Dr. Burke explained the custom of spending the first part of a season in sulphurous waters and then the later part of the season at the Hot, Warm and Sweet Springs as the sulphurous waters would be most effective on chronic diseases of the skin while the thermal waters would only relieve slight affections of the skin.

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Letter from James D. Wood to Moses D. Hoge, September 8, 1843: Wood refers to his time at Alum Springs, Hot Springs and Red Springs. He is pleased with the improvement in his health.
• Letter from J. L. Cabell to Franklin Minor, 1860: Professor Cabell from the University of Virginia “cannot help thinking that making the worst of the Red Sweet she [Mrs. Minor] jumps out of the frying pan into the fire in selecting the Hot Springs.”
• Letter from B. Chapman to Mr. Eakle, 1896: The Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library of the University of Virginia has a manuscript collection of approximately 4,500 items pertaining to the Sweet Chalybeate Springs from 1892 to 1916. It contains business letters, daybooks, check stubs, an inventory of merchandise, and various receipts and brochures. This is one of many letters to Mr. B. F. Eakle, Jr., the manager at the springs.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This detailed form for the Red Sweet Springs is dated October 1973. It includes the history and significance of the springs, descriptions of remaining buildings, one map, and a bibliography.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Alleghany County, Virginia.
• Monroe County Historical Society: The Society owns and seeks to restore the omnibus used to carry visitors from the Alleghany Railroad Station to Sweet Chalybeate (Red Sweet Springs) and Sweet Springs over 100 years ago.
• Sweet Chalybeate Springs (Red Sweet Springs) Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service: Search for Sweet Chalybeate Springs, and see six photographs taken in October 1974.
• City of Covington Tourism: Sweet Chalybeate: The Web site indicates that the springs are privately owned and no longer open to the public.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for Red Sweet Springs, and see eight images of Red Sweet Springs and vicinity, taken by Richard Creek in 1974.

Image Credits:

• {1} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {2} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs of the South and West, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing page 230. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• John J.  Moorman, The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, 1857.

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Dr. James L. Cabell (1813-1889), was a Professor at the University of Virginia School of Medicine where he taught for over 50 years. In this letter to Franklin Minor, a member of the University Board of Visitors, he discusses the Red Sweet Springs (also known as the Sweet Chalybeate Springs) and the Hot Springs as well as a disciplinary issue with a student. This engraving was made about the same time as he wrote his letter to Minor.

Maria Magruder Thurman Collection, 1860-1936, Accession #38-367, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Sweet Chalybeate Springs Papers, 1892-1916, Accession #38-16, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Charville Va March 4th 96

Mr. Eakle
Dear Sir
your letter rec I will except of your offer and i think i can get you a good cook Wilson I will write and see him and let you know in my last next letter of cours my wife has been with me for five years as chambermaid and has given thus satisfaction and if you haven’t made arrangement she would like to come let me know when you will need me or some help and I can send them when you need then tell Mr White i can furnish with [] first-class help if he needs then as he mention it – in his letter
Yours resp B. Chapman

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If order, abundant and well prepared fare, excellent bedding, quiet and obliging domestics, impartial and gentlemanly efforts to promote health and comfort, have any influence upon public favor, the proprietors of the Salt Sulphur will certainly secure it.   William Burke

Edward Beyer’s print of Salt Sulphur Springs published in 1857. {1}

William Burke on the Salt Sulphur Springs.

The Salt Sulphur Springs are located in Monroe County in what is now West Virginia, and were the subject of an 1840 pamphlet by Thomas D. Mütter titled The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Writing that it would be presumptive of him to discuss a subject already undertaken by the distinguished Dr. Mütter, soon to become Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Dr. Burke instead included several chapters from Mütter’s pamphlet. Mütter wrote that there were three springs surrounded by mountains at the Salt Sulphur. The first spring was discovered in 1802 or 1803 by a man boring for salt and enjoyed early fame until 1805 when the observation of herds of deer and buffalo at a natural salt lick led to the discovery of the second. Eventually analyzed by University of Virginia Professor William B. Rogers, it was the first in which he detected iodine. The third spring, found in 1838 while cutting a drain for water from the second, was warmer than the others but similar in taste and smell. Each of the three springs was enclosed in a square marble reservoir, and all had structures of some variety over them.

Burke did not want to leave unnoticed the “amiable” proprietors, Mr. Erskine and Mr. Caruthers, and gave them high praise for the “sumptuous provision” they made for their guests who were “treated as princes.” While quoting the “distinguished” Dr. Mütter extensively, Burke was also willing to contradict his assessment of the unique qualities of temperature and humidity of the location when he wrote that Dr. Mütter’s “alleged superiority of climate is altogether imaginary.”

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Salt Sulphur Springs.

An early view of the pavilion at Salt Sulphur Springs {2}

Dr. Burke again relied on Dr. Mütter’s pamphlet to describe diseases helped by the Salt Sulphur Springs. The waters were best avoided in acute or highly inflammatory afflictions, but were judged useful in chronic problems involving the brain or nervous system such as neuralgia, hysteria, incipient mania, and chorea. They were among the most valuable remedial agents in “some diseases of the lungs, stomach, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, and bladder,” but Mütter also warned that using a stimulant as active as the Salt Sulphur water could hasten the death of certain pulmonary patients. The springs were deemed a “remedy of immense importance” in gout, rheumatism, skin disorders, mercury poisoning, hemorrhoids, and chronic diseases of the womb.

Dr. Burke Concerning Professor Rogers’ Analysis of the Third Spring.

“In the analysis he gives: Iodine—a trace! We confess we cannot understand how a trace can be much greater than the quantity he has been so fortunate as to find in other waters. It may be owing to our obtuseness in not being able to distinguish between a large trace and a small trace; but we have always considered the difference to be about the same as between the big end of nothing, and the little end of no-thing-at-all.” {Burke, 334}

Dr. Thomas Dent Mütter.

Thomas Mütter 1811 – 1859 {3}

Dr. Mütter (1811-1859) visited the Virginia springs in 1834 as a consequence of “feeble” health. While he toured this “health-restoring region” he sought to ascertain the merits of the different waters with the intent of publishing a “small work.” He gave up this idea as various engagements intervened. But in the summer of 1839 he was again obliged to visit the springs due to ill health. His earlier observations were confirmed, and he decided to write a pamphlet for each of the waters with the relative merits of the therapeutic influence of each. He chose to publish his first pamphlet, The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, on, “a spring as yet little known among us, but whose sanative influence in many diseases cannot fail to establish for it ere long a reputation of the highest order.” This pamphlet was published in 1840 and may have been not only the first, but also the only pamphlet by Mütter on the springs as the following year he became the third Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College, a position he held until 1856. Mütter bequeathed his unusual anatomical and pathological specimens, a total of 1700 items, to the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, together with an endowment of $30,000 for maintenance and a lectureship associated with the collection. The Mütter Museum now includes over 20,000 objects.

More Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This detailed form for the Salt Sulphur Springs is dated August 1974. It includes the history and significance of the springs, descriptions of surviving buildings and ruins, maps, a bibliography, and photographs.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Monroe County, West Virginia.
• Monroe County official tourism site, culture and history: This site states that Salt Sulphur Springs has the largest complex of stone buildings in West Virginia.
• WV Your Way: The Salt Sulphur Springs guest house is a pre-Civil War stone house on the property of the old Salt Sulphur resort and may be rented for overnight stays.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for Salt Sulphur, and see 16 images of Salt Sulphur Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {2} Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, Accessed April 22, 2010.
• {3} Thomas Mütter Collection, Courtesy of the Thomas Jefferson University Archives and Special Collections (Art/Photo Collection, AM-097).

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• Thomas D. Mütter, The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840.

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They quicken the circulation, impart tonicity and vigor to the system, excite the animal passions, cheer the spirits, and inspire the mind with pleasureable sensations.   William Burke

Edward Beyer’s print of Sweet Springs published in 1857. {1}

William Burke on the Sweet Springs.

The Sweet Springs, sometimes referred to as the Old Sweet Springs, are located in Monroe County in what is now West Virginia and are said to have been discovered in 1764 before other mineral waters of the area. Dr. Burke writes that Dr. Lewis who apparently owned the property at the time of the first edition of his book in 1842 had built a two story, brick house with an imposing appearance. This building, combined with a number of brick and framed cottages, provided accommodations for 350 people and were a major improvement over the earlier log cabins. However, by the time his second edition was printed, Dr. Burke was concerned that the death of Dr. Lewis had resulted in the estate being annually rented out to the highest bidder for the prior three years. He wrote, “The house remains in an unfinished state, and like all houses so left, without an owner, it is already evidencing dilapidation; and, should the decision of the questions now in litigation be delayed many years, its decay will be rapidly progressive.”

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Sweet Springs.

Dr. Burke frowned upon the mixing of baths and spirits, but this account book shows that both bar and bath accounts were quite active in the summer of 1856. {2}

Since the waters at the Sweet Springs were highly stimulating, they were not recommended for cases of inflammatory disease or for those predisposed to tuberculosis and other lung related illness. People of sanguine temperament and women “in a delicate condition” or liable to severe periodical hemorrhages were discouraged from using the waters internally or by bathing. Dr. Burke strongly condemned the pernicious practice of imbibing “mint julaps” or other spirituous mixtures upon leaving the bath. But Dr. Burke asserted that aged persons, free from organic disease, would “find youth and vigor and elasticity at the bottom of this noble fountain,” and with a daily plunge could live to the “fabled age of the crow.” Burke also cautiously recommended the Sweet Springs for certain cases of uterine functions, dyspepsia, and nephritic affections.

Letter from Joseph C. Cabell to John Hartwell Cocke.

This letter {3} is corroborated by an American Beacon & Norfolk & Portsmouth Daily Advertiser newspaper notice: “Died at the Sweet Springs on Oct. 12, Miss Rebecca Parke Farley Carter, daughter of the late Dr. Charles & Mrs. Elizabeth L. Carter of Corrotoman, Lancaster Co., Va. Buried in Nelson Co. by her grandmother, the late Mrs. Judge Tucker, at Edgewood, the residence of her adopted parents, Mrs. Joseph C. & Mrs. Mary W. Cabell.” {Nelson County}

Edgewood. Oct. 18. 1839
My dear Cocke-
It has pleased Almighty God to take from us our dear beloved child. She expired at the Sweet Springs on the morning of the 12th. at 40 min. past one – & was interred along side of her Grandmother on the 15th at 3 in the evening. You can imagine, perhaps – the suffering of my poor wife & myself under this dreadful blow. Alas! My dear friend. we are broken hearted & desolate on the [earth]. I fear I shall hardly be able to support my poor wife, feeble as she already was, under this awful visitation.
Aff.ly yours-
Jos. C. Cabell

Thomas Jefferson Mentions the Sweet Springs, May 6, 1791.

At the end of his letter written in Philadelphia on May 6th, 1791, to Mr. Fulwar Skipwith, Thomas Jefferson adds a note about Mrs. Skipwith. Secretary of State at the time, Jefferson writes: I shall be happy to hear that Mrs. Skipwith’s stay at Richmond has bettered her health, & that the trip to the Sweet springs shall do it still more. I am sure her friends at Monticello will be made happy by seeing her there. would to God I could be of the party. it shall be so one of these days, without yet saying when. I would not give one hour of domestic & friendly society for an age of my present state. present me affectionately to Mrs. Skipwith & the young people, & accept assurances of the sincere esteem & attachment with which I am Dear Sir your sincere friend & servant
Thomas Jefferson
Mr Skipwith {4}

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Ledger charges for Dr. Oliver Bierne, 1855: This page shows the cost for Dr. Bierne, his daughters, nieces, other ladies, horses, servants, champagne and two decks of cards.
• Hotel Register, August 23 and 24, 1872: The registry page show guests who came from as far away as Scotland.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This detailed form for the Sweet Springs was written after May 1982. It gives the history of the springs, a bibliography, maps, and photographs.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Monroe County, West Virginia.
• Monroe County Historical Society: The Society owns and seeks to restore the omnibus used to carry visitors from the Alleghany Railroad Station to Sweet Chalybeate (Red Sweet Springs) and Sweet Springs over 100 years ago.
• Sweet Springs Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service: Search for Sweet Springs, Monroe, WV, at this Web site, and see 13 photographs taken in 1974, one copy of a mid-19th century illustration, and another copy of a 1910 image.
• Monroe County official tourism site, culture and history: This site states that the resort was popular from the late 1700s to the early 1930s.
• Old Sweet Springs: View interior and exterior photographs.
• Sweet Springs Sanitarium: This sites shows the interior.
• Joseph C. Cabell: This site provides an image and information about Joseph Carrington Cabell whose adopted daughter died at Sweet Springs.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for Sweet Springs, and see 15 images of Sweet Springs and vicinity from before 1977.
• Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia: In his section titled “Productions mineral, vegetable and animal,” Jefferson includes information about medicinal springs, one of which is Sweet Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {2} Sweet Springs (West Virginia), Hotel Registers covering the years 1870-72, 1884-86, 1888, 1897, 1908, 2 volumes, Accession #421, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {3} Joseph Carrington Cabell Papers, 1790-1890, Accession #38-111-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {4} Papers of the Randolph family of Edgehill and Wilson Cary Nicholas, 1725-1826, Accession #5533, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. 19th century copy.

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• Nelson County Obits and Marriage extracts copied from the “Henley Marriage & Obituary Index” From the marriage and obituary citations compiled by Bernard J. Henley from Virginia newspapers on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Accessed online July 14, 2009.

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Sweet Springs (West Virginia), Hotel Registers covering the years 1870-72, 1884-86, 1888, 1897, 1908, 2 volumes, Accession #421, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Portion of the First Mortgage Bond

Papers of the Stuart, Baldwin, and Robertson Families, 1859-1926, Accession #10378-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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This water I consider is the water of waters. This place is more crowded than any other in the mountains, and I have not heard of a single person who is dissatisfied.    General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson

This print shows the house and supplemental cabins that William Burke mentions in his book. {1}

William Burke on the Rockbridge Alum Springs.

Edward Beyer’s print published in 1857. {2}

The Rockbridge Alum Springs are located in Rockbridge County, Virginia, in a narrow valley about 17 miles from Lexington and 20 miles from Warm Springs. A steep road led to 15 acres of cleared land which provided the setting for a two-story frame house with a dining room, parlor, dancing hall, and several rooms for guests. This building was supplemented at both ends by six two-room cabins. The establishment was owned by the Campbell family at the time when Burke wrote his book and accommodated 80 people who were given “plain” and “indifferently served” mountain cooking of such scanty proportions that a “moderate eater can dispose of the whole in one morsel.” Burke wrote, “The private cook of a plain farmer in the mountains of Virginia cannot be supposed competent to cook for 100 persons, who have been accustomed to neat and comfortable living,” and he suggests more care in serving the guests because No matter how good the meat may be, nor how well cooked, if you cut it as you would for a dog, you get no credit for its quality; indeed, we noticed this to be a very general fault at the Springs we visited. {Burke, 372} Burke predicted that the enterprise would never be much more extensive than at the time he wrote given the difficulty of travel and of supplying the narrow valley.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Rockbridge Alum Springs.

Note the boxes of mineral water in the lower left corner ready to be shipped. {3}

Three basins, inaptly named springs in Burke’s opinion, collected water that worked its way up from crevices in rocks at the base of the mountain. Scanty in dry weather, the supply of water was greatest in rainy conditions when the rain also apparently acted as a solvent on the minerals in the rock. According to Dr. Burke, the springs had not been analyzed, but he said the water contained alum, copper and supposedly magnesia. A claim was made that it cured scrofula, a term used for tuberculosis of the lymph nodes of the neck. He could not confirm this but seemed to think it was worthy of trial and suggested that the water might also be a good treatment for lesions of the skin and some types of diarrhea. Generally unimpressed, he wrote, we should consider it as the water least capable of being profitably employed in any variety of diseases, of all the waters in the mountains. Here we found persons who were drinking twenty or more glasses a day of an agent confessedly very powerful for good or for evil. Surely this is an abuse, and can result in no advantage.{Burke, 371}

Medical Association of Virginia Endorses Rockbridge Alum Springs Mineral Water in 1883.

Rockbridge Alum Springs: The King among Mineral Waters {4}

By a unanimous motion, the Medical Association of Virginia endorsed after “thorough examination” and with “professional knowledge” the Rockbridge Alum Springs mineral water for people afflicted with some forms of dyspepsia or indigestion, scrofula, incipient consumption, torpid liver, aphthous diseases, diseases peculiar to females, and chronic forms of bronchitis, laryngitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, chronic skin diseases, and dysentery. University of Virginia professors James L. Cabell and John S. Davis were among the medical authorities giving the endorsement.

General Thomas (Stonewall) Jackson Writes from the Alum Springs to His Sister.

Rockbridge Alum from Dr. Moorman’s 1859 book, The Virginia Springs of the South and West. This portion of a lithograph shows the pavilion not evident in the image in Dr. Moorman’s book published two years earlier. {5}

July 12, 1852: I arrived here yesterday in as good health as usual, and am delighted with the waters so far. The place is crowded, there being about four hundred visitors, and the accommodations being only adequate for two hundred and seventy-five or three hundred. I succeeded in procuring half a bed, there being one room for four occupants. In a few days I hope to be better off. Though we have had but two beds to four persons in my quarters, yet the beds are good, and the servants and proprietors and their assistants are attentive. Boarding is ten dollars per week. This water I consider is the water of waters. This place is more crowded than any other in the mountains, and I have not heard of a single person who is dissatisfied, though my inquiries have been many. My appetite and digestion have already improved, and I indulge rather freely. My dinner was principally bread, which was rather fresh, potatoes and green corn, which is by no means digestible; my supper rich corn bread, and the same for breakfast, using butter freely at each meal. {Arnold, 187}

October 1852: Jackson wrote his sister again and gave the springs credit for his improved health and indicated that he was still using the water, “but its effects are not so good as when used at the Springs.” {Arnold, 191}

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Alum Springs engraving by Henry Howe, 1947: Alum Springs is one of over 100 engravings in the book Historical Collections of Virginia.
• Letter from R. L. Doyle, 1853: Doyle is anxious to secure a loan for property near the Rockbridge Alum Springs.
• Letter from Burl Fretwell, 1854: Fretwell writes that Elizabeth and the baby feel better after a visit to the springs.
• The Rockbridge Alum resort as drawn by Porte Crayon, 1857: The resort is one of many illustrations in the book Virginia Illustrated.
• Plan of Buildings at Rockbridge Alum Springs, 1869: This plan shows the locations and floor plans of various buildings at Rockbridge.
• State of Virginia First Mortgage Bond, The Rockbridge Alum Springs Company, 1880: The $500 bond is part of an issue of $22,000.
• Letter from Randolph Harrison, September 1885: Harrison writes his brother that he is on his way to Rockbridge after being sent there by [Dr.] Crenshaw.
• Letter from Randolph Harrison, October 1885: Fearful of being sick and stranded as the end of the season approaches, Harrison makes a “rapid retreat” from the springs.
• The Rockbridge Grand Hotel, 1891: The illustration highlights the bustling activity at the springs.
• Supper menu, 1899: The menu features whortleberries, stewed prunes, tenderloin steak, lamb, baked potatoes.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: This detailed form for Rockbridge Alum Springs is dated December 14, 1988. It includes the history and significance of the springs, descriptions of 38 buildings and ruins (including those from the Jordan Alum Springs which merged with Rockbridge in the late nineteenth century), one map, and a bibliography.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Rockbridge County, Virginia.
• Young Life Camp: Young Life is the current owner of Rockbridge Alum Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} John J. Moorman,The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857: facing page [214]. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {3} Rockbridge Alum Springs, Announcement for 1891. Its Attractions As a Summer Resort. Testimonials, Richmond, Va.: E. Waddey Co., 1891. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {4} Rockbridge Alum Springs, Incorporated: the King among Mineral Waters ; Endorsed by the Highest Medical Authorities, [Rockbridge County, Va. : s.n., between 1883 and 1900.] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {5}John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs of the South and West, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing page 264. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

Sources:

• Thomas Jackson Arnold, Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson, New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1916. Accessed December 3, 2008. Google Book Search.
• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

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David Hunter Strother, Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857, p. 175, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of Alexander H. H. Stuart and the related Stuart and Baldwin families, Accession #228-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Franklin Fretwell Papers; 1819-1886, Accession #11296, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Rockbridge Alum Springs, Announcement for 1891. Its attractions as a summer resort. Testimonials, Richmond, Va.: E. Waddey Co., 1891. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

This back cover of a 50 page pamphlet shows the bustling activity at Rockbridge in the late nineteenth century. The Grand Hotel was opened in 1873 at the adjacent Jordan Springs. Bitter disputes resulted in a high fence being built between the Rockbridge and the Jordan Springs. An insert at back of the book, The Pine and the Palm Greeting, states, “Rockbridge Alum, James A. Frazier, Proprietor, one-half mile distant by public road, (Skilled gymnasts can reach it in 120 yards by vaulting a high fence,) a delightful and popular Summer resort.” {Watkins} In 1880 the two resorts merged into one.

N. J. Watkins, ed., The Pine and the Palm Greeting, Baltimore : J. D. Ehlers’ & Co.’s Engraving and Printing House, 1873.

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Letters to Dr. George Byrd Harrison, 1885, Accession #12106, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Letters to Dr. George Byrd Harrison, 1885, Accession #12106, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Alum Springs by Henry Howe from Historical Collections of Virginia, Charleston, S. C.: W. R. Babcock, 1847. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

The book by Henry Howe “containing a collection of the most interesting facts, traditions, biographical sketches, anecdotes” relating to Virginia’s history and antiquities was published one year later than William Burke’s second edition of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. Howe’s book is illustrated by more than 100 engravings, including this one of Alum Springs.

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The Hot Springs resort as drawn by Porte Crayon in 1857. The large hotel, the Homestead, was built by Dr. Thomas Goode in 1846. {1}

A Scottish accountant, Alexander Dick, was sent by Parliament in 1806 to investigate pre-Revolutionary War debts. He spent several years in the United States and kept a diary of his travels. To escape the summer heat of Richmond he traveled to the mountains of Virginia and visited both Warm Springs and Hot Springs. His entry for August 30th, 1808, described the Hot Springs. This excerpt is from a transcription of the original, fragile journal owned by the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia follows.

“We rode to day to the Hot Springs Six Miles farther on. These are not so copious as the Warm Springs, but they are remarkable on account of the Variety of their temperatures—One of them is 90, & within a few feet of it there is a very Cold Spring which Sinks the thermr. to 53—There is another about a hundred yards distant at 96. —One at 100 & one So high as 106—After bathing in this last for 15 or 20 Minutes the Patient is laid on a bed between blankets where he Sweats profusively for a half or 3 Quarters of an hour. The water here however is not So clear as at the Warm Springs—Returned to there last before dinner.” {Dick, 289-90}

Alexander Dick, Journal of Alexander Dick in America 1806-1809 [edited by] Helen Beall Lewis, Helen Beall Lewis’ thesis (M.A.)–University of Virginia, 1984.

Image Credits

• {1} David Hunter Strother, Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857: p. 135. University of Virginia Library.

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Jedediah Hotchkiss, Plan of Buildings at Rockbridge Alum Springs, Rockbridge Co., Virginia, 1869. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

This plan shows the locations and floor plans of various buildings at Rockbridge, including the dining room, kitchen, servants’ quarters, linen house, store house, hotel with parlor and ball room, bath house, ladies’ bowling alley, music stand, bar room, store, post office, gentlemen’s bowling alley, billiard room, and numerous guest rooms and buildings.

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Rockbridge Alum Springs, John E. Tappan, Manager, Supper, Friday July 28, 1899, Rockbridge, Va., 1899. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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The fountain is enclosed in marble slabs, is five feet in diameter, and one of the most beautiful objects imaginable. The sides are covered with a brilliant pink deposit, and the clear, cool, crystalline water seems to say, “Come and drink me.”   William Burke

Edward Beyer’s print of Blue Sulphur Springs published in 1857. {1}

William Burke on the Blue Sulphur Springs.

Located in Greenbrier County in what is now West Virginia, Blue Sulphur Springs was in a valley with numerous improvements including a brick hotel with two additional buildings attached to make a continuous range of two and three story structures for 420 feet. By additional brick cottages and frame cabins Burke estimated in his 1846 book that 220 people could be comfortably accommodated. In fact, Burke described the style of living at Blue Sulphur as more elegant with nicer furniture and better service than that at any of the other springs except possibly Warm Springs and Salt Sulphur. The spring was in the center of the valley with a “well-designed but badly executed Temple” over it.

This lithograph drawn by E. Crehen clearly shows the long range of two and three stories. {2} The “Temple” over the spring is nearly 33 feet square and an example of Greek Revival architecture. It is the only remnant that remains as the other buildings were burned during the Civil War.

Burke appreciated the service, but deplored the arrangement of the buildings. He wrote, “Never have we seen bad taste more unfortunately illustrated than here. It seems as if the designer had his brain obfuscated by mint-julap. What man in his sober senses could have ever thought of spoiling a lovely valley like this, admitting a prospect of several miles, by throwing across it from hill to hill a long line of buildings which could have been so easily and so gracefully ranged along the sides; not only obstructing the view, but also preventing the delightful current of air which otherwise would have fanned it in the dog-days?” {Burke, 359} Dr. Martin was evidently the resident physician whom Burke held responsible for boilers built across the valley and suggested that he be consigned “to the care of Dr. Moorman, who might cause him to evolve gas in the stomach, for such an act of barbaric taste.”

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Blue Sulphur Springs.

Dr. Burke wrote that the 53 degree Blue Sulphur water was pleasant to the palate but not as agreeable as either the White or Red Sulphur waters and not as advantageous as the same amount of the other sulphur spring waters. He suggested that dyspeptics begin with small amounts. Merit was claimed for “regulating certain periodical secretions.” Burke thought these claims were exaggerated but suggested the ladies try the waters and then judge for themselves. Due to the unsightly boilers, Dr. Martin could provide baths of any temperature which Burke pronounced useful if they were carefully administered.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Registration Form:  This detailed form for the Blue Sulphur Springs is dated September 23, 1992. It includes the history and significance of the springs, a description of the pavilion, a bibliography, maps, and a pavilion photo.
• The Greenbrier Historical Society: The Society now has title to the pavilion which has been identified as one of the most endangered historic resources in West Virginia and is working to restore it.
• National Register of Historic Places:  The National Register has a brief summary of places in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.
• Photos of the Pavilion:  Photos taken of the pavilion on Mary 26, 2006 are posted.

Image Credits:

• {1} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {2} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs of the South and West, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing page 217. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

Source:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

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Indeed, the place has long been remarkable for sociability, and there are few, if any, situations in our mountains where a period of relaxation from the cares and business of life can be more agreeably spent.  John J. Moorman

Transcription of “Dagger’s White Sulphur Springs.” Lexington Gazette, July 17, 1838.

William Burke on Dagger’s Springs

Situated about 14 miles from Virginia’s Natural Bridge, Dagger’s Spring, also known as Dibrell’s Spring and Daggar’s Spring, is located in Botetourt County, Virginia. The proprietor at the time of the first edition of Burke’s book published in 1842, Charles L. Dibrell, informed Dr. Burke that he sometimes had 200 visitors at a time, but Burke thought that 150 was a more reasonable number for comfort. Unlike his assessment of the arrangement of the Blue Sulphur Springs buildings, Burke found the structures at Dagger’s Spring well arranged not only for convenience but also for effect. He wrote of the “kind attentions, the delightful fare, and comfortable lodgings of our friend, Mr. Dibrell.”

Burke was also most appreciative of the setting as he wrote, “The lawn is a very beautiful slope, descending from the Hotel to the Spring some 300 yards, and is well shaded by fine indigenous trees. Altogether, it is an interesting spot, and affords to the weary traveler, after a long day’s journey, a sweet haven of repose and quietude, from whence he may retrace, with his mind’s eye, the magnificent scenery he has just passed, and especially that most sublime of all the creations of Nature in Virginia – the passage of the James River through the Blue Ridge Mountain.” {Burke, 365-6}

Dr. Burke’s final paragraph on these springs in his second edition states, “Within the last three years, this Spring has reverted to Mr. Watkins, from whom, we believe, it was purchased by Mr. Dibrell. We hear it is well kept and attracts a due share of custom.” {Burke, 357} It appears Burke did not visit Dagger’s Spring between the writing of his first and second editions. John Moorman, for many years the resident physician at White Sulphur Springs and the author of a book published in 1857, said that these Springs were first opened to the public in the 1830s by a Mr. Daggar and then James W. Dibrell hence it being known by different names. {Moorman, 241}

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Dagger’s Springs.

Dr. Burke suggested that the sulphur water at Dagger’s Spring was useful in the treatment of several unnamed diseases. He judged the water somewhat comparable to the waters from the Blue Sulphur and the White Sulphur Springs and therefore probably applicable to similar diseases. Claiming no reliable information within his reach, he did not elaborate.

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857.

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There is here a most comfortable Bathing establishment, which greatly enhances the advantages it presents in other matters, and those advantages must insure to this place a steadily increasing custom, and cause it to rank in point of numbers and fashion among the first of the Virginia Springs. William Burke

This lithograph shows the resort before the Civil War when two hotels and many of the cottages were burned. {1}

William Burke on the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs.

The Virginia Legislature moved to the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs in 1849 when there was a cholera outbreak in Richmond. This print depicts the resort in the mid 1850s. {2}

Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, located in Fauquier County, Virginia, was much appreciated in the neighborhood before it became a public resort. In his 1846 book Burke included a report stating that one man who owned the springs had suffered so many interruptions to the running of his farm that he filled up the spring. But eventually the land was acquired by Hancock Lee who with Thomas Green created “this most charming establishment.” Burke wrote that the improvements were “better calculated to promote the comfort and please the taste of visiters [visitors],” than any other watering-place in the state. The buildings could accommodate 800 guests and boasted of two, three and four story edifices. Appreciative of spacious and suitably furnished rooms, Burke did suggest that improvements could be made in the grounds. He was also disappointed in the “appearance of the table” which had a coarse cloth, chipped and broken china, dull and poorly cleaned tableware, and “other signs of a ‘falling off,’ which we could have wished had not been so palpable. We deem this miserable economy, and hope it has been corrected.” He surmised that no improvements of note had occurred since 1837 when the buildings and over 2900 acres of land were valued at $170,000.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs.

Broadside of Fauquier White Sulphur Springs

Dr. Burke was not aware of any authentic analysis of the water but was satisfied that it was useful in dyspepsia, dropsy, and other diseases treated by sulphur water. He thought it could improve a torpid condition of the liver when given with blue mass, a preparation variously concocted but always with excessive amounts of mercury.

This broadside, probably printed in the mid 1840s, gives details concerning access to the springs by water, rail, and paved and plank roads. A resort for both “invalids and fashionable society” the healing waters were celebrated along with “almost every species of legitimate amusement.” Boarding rates varied depending on the length of stay and were $80 for the season and $1.75 per day for adults. Children from 3 to 12 and servants were charged half price. Horses cost 50 cents per day to board. {3}

Letter from Pell Manning to George O. Manning, August 25, 1863

Pell Manning gives his address as White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, but since he mentions the Rappahannock River, his location is undoubtedly near the springs known variously as the Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Warrenton Springs, or Lee Springs. Given that he was a Union soldier and only about 30 miles from the Virginia–West Virginia border, it may not be too surprising that he was mistaken as to which state he was in. He does a good job describing the ruins and the springs which are captured in the September 19, 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly.

Pell Manning Letter, 1863

White Sulphur Springs WVa.
August 25th 1863
My dear George,
Your kind letter arrived safely day before yesterday. Right glad to hear from you my boy also that you are well, enjoying yourself and in good spirits. – You will see by the above, that we are near the Springs. they being two miles distant on our left. – We have been here since the 12th inst doing picket duty, guarding one of the fords across the north branch of the famous Rappahannock – No signs of the rebs. here save aplenty of guerrillas, who are prowling about through the mountains and the whole vicinity in general – These springs you know are celebrated as a watering place of years gone by, where I suppose many a gay, hot-headed rebel has passed the summer months away, cooling perhaps his fevered [brow] and ruminating over the events then about to happen, and which are now progressing –The hotel in its prime was capable of giving accommodation to three thousand visitors, but no longer ago than last year was battered down by Sigel, or [Gray] and is now one mass of ruins “from turret to foundation stone.” The massive granite pillars are still standing, and although begrimed with smoke & heat, show that the building was one of no small nature. – The premises about are shaded by magnificent shade trees, mostly chestnut & walnut. – The Springs are situated in a basin about thirty feet in diameter, the flooring of which is composed of white marble, and you descend some seven granite steps to [come] [within] springs themselves. – here you can drink sulphur water smell sulphur, and taste sulphur, to your hearts content. – I drank about a pint which was just enough for me, as I was not very ill at the time and came away contented. – The water is very blue, about the regulation color of our pants .…
Sincerely Yours Pell {4}

Additional Information:

• Use of Fauquier Springs by the Virginia Legislature in 1849: Fearful of the cholera outbreak affecting the Richmond area, the Legislature moved to the Fauquier Springs Hotel amid the public’s concern over the cost of the fashionable resort.
• Fauquier Springs Country Club history: This page and links from it mention Presidents James Madison and James Monroe who owned cottages at Fauquier, other famous visitors, the 1862 Civil War battle that resulted in the burning of much of the resort, and the 1943 purchase by Walter P. Chrysler.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for Fauquier Springs, and see nine images of Fauquier White Sulphur Springs and the vicinity, most taken by Timothy H. O’Sullivan in 1862. Included is one of the ruins of the hotel.
• Full text of Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, Virginia: Written for the 1882 season, this document relates the history of the springs, the accommodations and grounds as they were in the early 1880s, an analysis of the waters, certificates of cures, and accessibility.

Image Credits:

• {1} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857: facing page [214]. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {3} Fauquier White Sulphur Springs (Hotel: Fauquier County, Va.), Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Va.: 50 miles, west from Washington, D.C, [Fauquier County, Va.: Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, 1846?] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {4} Pell Manning Letter, Aug. 25, 1863, Accession #8435, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Source:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

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“The Army of the Potomac—General Birney’s Camp at Warrenton Sulphur Springs, Virginia” sketched by Mr. A. R. Waud. Harper’s Weekly, September 19, 1863.

Manning writes of drinking “about a pint” of the sulphur water. Waud’s drawing, titled “Drinking the Sulphur Water,” shows a trio of soldiers gathered around the spring with cups. He also draws the springs “situated in a basin about thirty feet in diameter, the flooring of which is composed of white marble,” as well as the “seven granite steps” referred to by Manning.

Manning describes the hotel as “one mass of ruins from ‘turret to foundation stone’ though the “massive granite pillars are still standing.” He also mentions the premises being “shaded by magnificent shade trees, mostly chestnut & walnut.”

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The beneficial effects of hot spouts topically applied are so miraculous in many painful and obstinate complaints that words cannot adequately describe them, therefore the prisoners of pain are strongly recommended to expose their rheumatic joints, gouty toes and enlarged livers to the comfortable outpourings of these healing streams. John R. Page

The Hot Springs resort as drawn by Porte Crayon in 1857. The large hotel, the Homestead, was built by Dr. Thomas Goode in 1846. {1}

William Burke on the Hot Springs.

Edward Beyer’s print of Hot Springs published in 1857. {2}

The Hot Springs are located in Bath County, Virginia, five miles distant from Warm Springs. Dr. Burke’s book, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, reported that the accommodations were suitable for 150 people and the meals were “excellent and plentiful, and served with neatness and comfort.” The property was owned by Dr. Thomas Goode who also served as the resident physician and supervisor of activities at the Hot Springs. He seemed to have a “deficiency in the art of pleasing” and was described as supercilious, high-toned, and rude. He also was the target of “complaints long, loud, and reiterated” because of his charges for board and baths. Nevertheless, Dr. Burke also stated that Goode was a well-bred gentleman, a physician of high standing based on his talent and experience, a man who would offer honest and reliable advice, and a doctor whose great goal was the physical improvement of his patients.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Hot Springs.

Dr. Burke urged caution at the Hot Springs not because of an excess amount of nitrogen gas like the nearby Warm Springs, but because of the high temperature of the water, “as the Hot bath is decidedly stimulating to the human system, it is always proper, if not absolutely necessary, to obtain the best advice before we have recourse to so powerful an agent.”

Thomas Goode was born in 1787 to Colonel Samuel Goode who was a member of the U.S. Congress from 1799-1801. Thomas moved to Bath County, Virginia, in 1833 and bought the Hot Springs which he built up with his wisdom and energy. He was the father of at least seven daughters and two sons, an enthusiastic politician, and buried near the Hot Springs Hotel. {Goode, 63, 122}

Six baths, each with its own spring, had temperatures ranging from 98-106 degrees. Convinced of the “high curative power” of the springs and of Dr. Goode’s skill, Dr. Burke included ten testimonial letters from patients and doctors written to Dr. Goode. These letters, nine of which were taken from Thomas Goode’s book printed in 1846, The Invalid’s Guide to the Virginia Hot Springs, claimed the Hot Springs were useful in curing or aiding patients with chronic diarrhea, painful menstruation, hemorrhoids, inflammatory rheumatism, skin ulcers, stomach and liver pain, lead poisoning, and paralysis. One of the letters that Dr. Burke included in his volume was written by H. Howard, M.D., a professor at the University of Virginia from 1839 to 1867. In late 1841 Dr. Howard wrote that for ten years, which included time at the University of Virginia as well as Baltimore, he had been sending all his patients with chronic diarrhea or painful menstruation to the Hot Springs. He claimed good results as long as the patients followed a prescribed regimen and had the advice of a physician.

I have been at the Hot Springs for six entire seasons, and have watched their effects on several thousand invalids, with all the interest which ownership could excite. Dr. Thomas Goode

Dr. Burke’s extensive quotes from Goode’s book described two baths with three to four inch columns of water falling for six feet that were beneficial to rheumatic patients. Another bath was so large that it could be used for swimming both by the sick and for the healthy simply for pleasure. Dr. Goode claimed, “These waters taken internally, are anti-acid, mildly aperients, and freely diuretic and diaphoretic. But when used as a general bath, their effects are great, and excel all expectation. They equalize an unbalanced circulation, and thereby restore the different important parts of the system, … and often relieve, in a short time, excruciating pain caused by palpable and long standing disease of some vital organ.” {Burke, p. 80}

Dr. William Beverly Towles

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Alexander Dick, 1808: A Scottish accountant, Dick describes the various temperatures of the springs and how a patient is laid between blankets after spending 15 or 20 in the 106 degree spring water.
• Letter from John McLaughlin to Mrs. Mary O. McLaughlin, 1814: Mr. McLaughlin writes that he and two of his companions are better than they have been for several months.
• Letter from Dr. Henry Howard, 1841: Dr. Howard gives a masterful reply in response to Dr. Goode’s request for his opinion about the springs.
• Letter from John Minor to Alexander Garrett, 1848: Minor writes of a sore mouth, teeth jumping out of their sockets, being cooped up in a little room only 10 feet square, feeling weaker than ever, and dreading when the baths will cause a “disgorgement” of his liver.
• Circuit Court of Albemarle, [1868?]: Dr. Goode died in 1858. The Hot Springs were open as a watering place until August 1863 and then offered for sale. This suit contests the sale which was complicated by debts, the war, and the valuation of Confederate money.
• An Account of the Hot Springs, Bath County, Va. …, 1873: This account is by Dr. James L. Cabell, the resident physician at the Hot Springs and the senior faculty member at the University of Virginia.
• Concerning Hot Springs of Virginia by John R. Page, 1894: Page writes a letter extolling the springs and particularly the hot spouts that are “miraculous in many painful and obstinate complaints.”
• Letter from G. W. Banks, 1897: Banks writes that all people with syphilis go to hot springs as the hot water soaks the mercury into them. He mentions this as a town newspaper has given the names of several people traveling to Hot Springs, Arkansas.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This detailed form for the Hot Springs is dated June 1979. It includes the history and significance of the springs, location, description of buildings, maps, and a bibliography.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Bath County, Virginia.
• The Homestead: The current owner’s official Web site gives a history of the resort.
• The Homestead: A Brief History: It is called brief, but this document contains a lot of information.
• Hot Springs, West Virginia, Geo-Heat Center Bulletin, May 1996: The Bulletin explains the resort’s history from its early days up through its development into the mid 1990s. It includes its use as a Confederate hospital and a World War II facility for Japanese diplomats. Illustrations are included.
• Drawings of Porte Crayon, the pen name for David Hunter Strother: The site describes Strother’s contributions as a graphic artist and writer.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for Hot Springs Virginia and see dozens of images of the springs, many from 1946.
• Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia: In Jefferson’s section titled “Productions mineral, vegetable and animal,” he includes information about medicinal springs, one of which is Hot Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} David Hunter Strother, Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857: p. 135. University of Virginia Library.
• {2} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {3} W. B. Towles Medical Case Book, 1885, Accession #11532, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {4} University of Virginia Visual History Collection, Image Filename: prints08141. Accessed July 21, 2009.

Sources:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• G. Brown Goode, Virginia Cousins: a Study of the Ancestry and Posterity of John Goode of Whitby, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph & English, 1887.

Previous: Fauquier White Sulphur Springs / Next: Red Sulphur Springs

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650(1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Small Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

This certificate shows that as of February 23, 1858, Colonel Robert W. Carter owned five shares, each worth $5,000 of the Capital stock of the White Sulphur Springs Company.

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Excerpt from the indenture document

Robert Wormeley Carter (1797-1861) pays $2500 for cottage privileges. He and his heirs have the right to use the cottage, specifically the fourth Cottage in Baltimore row, in perpetuity unless given $500 by the Company. For more information about Carter and other members of his family, see Papers of the Carter and Wellford Family of Sabine Hall.

Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

This $500 bond of Robert Wormeley Carter was to be paid on January 1, 1862, with 8 percent interest paid semi-annually upon the surrender of the attached coupons. The coupons for 1860 and January 1861 have been removed, but the ones for July 1, 1861 and January 1, 1862 remain attached. The Confederate States of America were established on February 4, 1861, Virginia seceded from the United States on April 17, 1861, and joined the CSA in June 1861.

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Lewis Family, Papers, Accession #38-418, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Barringer family papers, 1828-1963, Accession #2588, Special Collections, University of Virginia

{1} For photo identification and more about the coincidental meeting of Robert E. Lee, other former Confederate generals, prominent educators and philanthropists, and statesmen, see “Robert E. Lee, George Peabody, and Sectional Reunion” by Franklin Parker, Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1960), pp. 195-202. Accessed June 2, 2010.

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Morton-Halsey, Collection, 1786-1938, Accession #3995, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Miscellaneous Virginia Letters, 1820-1928, Accession #13495, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Oh, that I had taken your Pa’s advice at first and gone to Richmond or somewhere & been properly examined, but it is not too late, I hope = I meet with a plenty of acquaintances & kind so far as they are able, but there is but little to be expected here =
Continue to write to me here = oh my dear I do want to see you, oh how happy I should be to see you & our dear little children & friends = but we are separated for the present, God in his mercy will restore us to each other again – for which let us pray = I feel that I shall improve now & hope my next may be more cheerful = I have improved in my general health = altho’ I have reduced very much = don’t be uneasy for me, it can do no good – be careful of your [missing] oh my dear take good care of yourself I am glad that all are well; it goes hard with your Pa, to have so much to [att]end to but I hope that I may be able after a while to render better service; give my love to all to whom I am so much attached- Advise me what you think of my staying by next mail – oh I am so fickle – I need advice from some one that I know =
Write to me every mail –
Your most devoted
JSM

{1} For additional information about John S. Martin, see this website about his son, Thomas Staples Martin.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs. Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857, facing page 1, Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

This birds-eye view of White Sulphur Springs was published by J. W. Randolph in 1854 and was included by Dr. Moorman in his 1857 book, The Virginia Springs. He included a more colorful and more detailed birds-eye view map in his 1859 book, The Virginia Springs of the South and West.

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John Hartwell Cocke, Papers, 1725-1931, Accession 640, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Notes:

William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

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The frontispiece is from A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, during the Summer of 1837 by Henry Huntt published in Boston by Dutton and Wentworth in 1839.

This exhibit is inspired by The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia by William Burke, the first volume purchased by the Weaver Family Endowed Rare Book and Medical Materials Fund. Published in 1846, the book describes the setting and development of eleven springs in what are now Virginia and West Virginia. Dr. Burke, a one-time owner and resident physician at Red Sulphur Springs, remarks on the usefulness of the various mineral waters in certain diseases as well as contraindications to their use. The springs range from those that are well known today such as the White Sulphur Springs, currently the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia, to the Blue Sulphur Springs, once able to accommodate several hundred people and now represented by a lone Greek Revival pavilion in the middle of a field near Smoot, West Virginia.

Selected information from Burke’s book is enhanced by dozens of images and transcriptions of nineteenth-century letters and documents from the University of Virginia’s Special Collections Library. These reflect the experiences of visitors to the springs. For example, one writer finds his health “greatly improved” while another describes himself as “much weaker & more reduced than I ever was before.” Assessments of the various establishments and clientele vary from an “exceedingly pleasant place” with “many pleasant acquaintances” to “dull and uninteresting” and “that sink hole of extravagance, gambling & vice for many young & unmarried men.”

In addition to the written documents, ten of the eleven springs are illustrated by etchings or paintings from the nineteenth century. Links to relevant Web sites provide more recent information such as National Register of Historic Places data, photos, and current use. A Google map gives the location of the springs and recent photos.

Next: Introductory Essay

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The title page to Burke’s 1846 edition ofThe Mineral Springs of Western Virginia which has been scanned in it’s entirety and is part of the University of Virginia digital text collection.{1}

This exhibit showcases a number of original nineteenth-century letters and documents, housed in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, that relate to the 11 springs (Warm, Hot, Sweet, Red-Sweet, White Sulphur, Red Sulphur, Salt Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, Daggers’ or Dibrell’s, Rockbridge Alum, and Fauquier White Sulphur) that Dr. William Burke wrote about in the second edition of his book, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. Dr. Burke’s book was entered into the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1842 and published in 1846, four years after the first edition. This is the first book purchased with the Weaver Family Endowed Rare Book and Medical Materials Fund, created in honor and memory of Edgar Newman Weaver, M.D., Evelyn Richards Weaver, and David Delmar Weaver, M.D., by Margaret Carr Weaver Crosson, Evelyn Dabney Weaver Dwyer, and Edgar Newman “Wink” Weaver, Jr., M.D. The book is housed in Historical Collections, The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

William Burke, whose book provides the starting point for this exhibit, was the owner of Red Sulphur Springs in what is now Monroe County, West Virginia. He first visited these springs in 1829 as an invalid. He purchased them in 1832 and transformed the property both by replacing the small, windowless cabins with spacious and conveniently arranged buildings and also by removing trees to permit the sun to reach what had previously been a gloomy gorge. According to Henry Huntt who recorded his visit to the Red Sulphur in 1837, the servants were “prompt and obedient,” and the dining table was “abundantly supplied with every variety of viands that can tempt the appetite.” {Huntt, 19} In The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, Burke writes that he “surrendered possession of the property by a deed or contract recorded in the County Court of Monroe,” moved to Richmond, and in early 1842 divested himself “of every residuary interest in the estate.” {Burke, 169} While no longer an owner by the time his second edition was published in 1846, it is clear that he continued to have ties to these springs, and he gave precedence to the Red Sulphur in his book, devoting more than one third of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia to this particular spring.

The title of Burke’s 1853 edition The Virginia Mineral Springs allowed him to include springs from all of Virginia not just the western part.{2}

Dr. Burke also wrote The Mineral Springs of Virginia. The preface to his first edition, published in 1851, states that he chose to re-write his first book and issue it as a new work. He admits, “In the course of the former publications, I became involved in controversies and personalities, as foreign from my taste and disposition as they were uninteresting to the public. These and other irrelevant matters I have discarded from the present work.” Indeed, his main antagonist in his first book is Dr. J. J. Moorman, a fellow author and resident physician at the White Sulphur Springs. Ten percent of Dr. Burke’s 1846 volume, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, is devoted to his disagreement with Dr. Moorman concerning the effectiveness of White Sulphur Springs’ water that no longer contained “sulphuretted hydrogen gas.” Inflammatory statements present in Burke’s first book are removed from his reworked 1851 volume. For example, this caustic 1846 assessment of Dr. Moorman is excised: “His facts are without foundation in truth; his arguments puerile and shallow; his theories untenable; his absurdities ridiculous; his motives palpable and culpable; and his efforts to bolster up a selfish practice, a gross imposition.” {Burke, 172} With a second edition of The Mineral Springs of Virginia, newly titled The Virginia Mineral Springs, in 1853, Burke was able to do what he had hoped to do in the first edition. He visited the eastern group of the Virginia springs and included chapters on Jordan’s White Sulphur, Shannondale, Berkeley, Orrick’s Sulphur, and Capon Springs as well as inserted additional information on springs written about earlier.

Dr. Burke was married and had at least one daughter and one son. Grace Fenton Hunter visited the Red Sulphur Springs for over a month in 1838 and mentioned Dr. B., presumably Dr. Burke, and Mrs. Burke a number of times in herdiary. Hunter described Mrs. Burke, with whom she exchanged numerous visits, as a “kind” and “sensible woman, talkative, and more agreeable than the generality of persons.” She also wrote that Mrs. Burke and her daughter played music and sang. In the introduction to his small book, Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, published in 1860, Dr. Burke stated that the professional experience at the Red Sulphur of his son, Thomas J. Burke, totaled 18 years. William Burke was still visiting the establishment in the late 1850s as Red Sulphur Springs has several testimonial letters that placed the writers and Dr. Burke at these springs in the summer of 1859.

As William Burke makes clear, the Virginia springs were a destination for both the invalid and the vigorous. Some sought healing from an array of diseases. Every malady from indigestion and bronchitis to consumption, paralysis, and “diseases peculiar to females” had its sufferers seeking a cure by “taking the waters.” Dr. Burke expounds on the incongruity of the juxtaposition of those desperately seeking a restoration of health and those at the springs for the sake of entertainment or socializing. “The invalid, pale, emaciated, and wretched, may be seen there at almost every hour, waiting till the giddy dance of the gay and volatile, who came there merely to gratify ‘a truant disposition,’ shall leave the waters free for him to drink and be healed. The feverish flush, the hectic of consumption, the tottering gait of rheumatism, the wasted form of the dyspeptic, may all be observed in contrast with the ruddy glow of manly health, the free elastic step of youthful vigor, the gay smile of unpained hearts, and the loud laugh of mirth that knows not even the check of another’s sufferings.” {Burke, 1846, p. 133}

Dr. Mütter’s book was written after he visited the Salt Sulphur for health reasons. {3}

Reputable physicians attested to the healing aspects of the various mineral waters. Thomas D. Mütter, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia called the Salt Sulphur “one of the most valuable of our remedial agents” in a range of diseases. {Mutter, 19} Henry Huntt, a personal physician to Presidents James Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson, extolled the virtues of Dr. Burke’s Red Sulphur Springs. Drs. James L. Cabell and John S. Davis, both Professors in the medical school at the University of Virginia, gave anendorsementfor the mineral water from Rockbridge Alum Springs as useful in myriad diseases. {Link to Medical Association of Virginia endorses Rockbridge Alum Springs mineral water in 1883 on the Alum Springs page} Cabell, also a resident physician at the Hot Springs, authored atreatiseon the value of the thermal baths on disorders as varied as deafness and rheumatism. Dr. William Beverly Towles, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Virginia, cared for patients at the Hot Springs as evidenced by hisCasebookfor 1885.

The letters from Special Collections reflect a range of spring experiences and expectations. Written to family and friends they probably give a more truthful assessment of the waters than the resident physicians and property owners or the testimonials they solicited. Some of the letters are very encouraging. Burl Fretwell writes that he brought a woman, probably his wife, home from the Alum Springs, and a cough of two years duration had finally cleared up.John McLaughlinattests to the benefits of the springs and says his health is better than it had been for many months.James D. Wood,writing from his third spring in three weeks, declares that his general health is “greatly improved.”

Other writers are hopeful but describe mixed results in terms of their health at the springs.Randolph Harrisonthought he was recovering at the Alum Springs, but then came down with a fever that “took all the starch out of me.” After spending a month at the Red Sulphur, Grace Fenton Hunter writes in aletterthat she has “gained flesh, and also strength,” but herdiaryentry for the same day states that she “read and worked as usual, but feeling badly did little of either.”R. T. Hubardat the White Sulphur corresponds with his wife indecisively, “I spent one week at the Sweet Springs and returned here yesterday morning. The Sweet Spring water & bath improved my health, I think, a little, tho not much. Indeed I fear that my health will not be greatly improved by my trip.”J. S. Martinwrites, “I had perceived no benefit (or very little) from the Water here.” His letter from White Sulphur mentions hope four times, including, “I feel that I shall improve now & hope my next [letter] may be more cheerful.”

Some correspondents realize their health has definitely not improved at the springs. John Minorfeels worse at the Hot Springs and considers himself to be “much weaker & more reduced than I ever was before.”Edmund Randolphtries the Warm Springs for his paralysis to no avail. Tillenjoys the baths at the Warm Springs but asks a granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson about the pain in her breast, says she herself suffers from it, and declares, “I was not improved by my excursion, I have been sick almost constantly since I came home and my cough is worse than it ever has been. Sometimes I think, at least I am afraid that I am quite in bad health.”

Thomas Jefferson’svisit to the Warm Springs in August 1818 covers a wide range of experiences. He describes the bath as “delicious” and within a week calls the spring with the Hot and Warm “of the first merit.” He also presumes that the “seeds of his rheumatism” are “eradicated.” But the passing of another week brings an alarming occurrence. He tells his daughter, “I do not know what may be the effect of this course of bathing on my constitution; but I am under great threats that it will work it’s effect thro’ a system of boils.” Indeed, he claims that he suffers “prostrated health from the use of the waters” with abscesses, fever, sweats, and extreme debility. In December his summer visit still finds its way into a letter, “my trial of the Warm springs was certainly ill advised. for I went to them in perfect health, and ought to have reflected that remedies of their potency must have effect some way or other. if they find disease they remove it; if none, they make it.”

Many who went to the baths were not seeking improvement in their health but visited to enjoy various amusements that included gaming, drinking, dancing, carriage rides, horseback riding, and ten-pin alleys. This is reflected in thereceiptsfor White Sulphur Springs in 1860 showing substantial sums collected for the bar and the shooting gallery. Some hoped to meet their future spouse while enjoying the waters.R. T. Hubardupon seeing Randolph Harrison at the White Sulphur Springs suspects Harrison is “in pursuit of a wife.”

Dr. Moorman’s birds-eye view of White Sulphur shows the romantically named walking paths and lists the names of 20 people who had their own cottage. {4}

This birds-eye view of the White Sulphur, published in 1859, shows the location of the bath house and several springs, but also the winding paths through the grove of trees south of the creek with names such as Lovers Walk, Lovers Leap, Lovers Rest, Way to Paradise, Courtship Maze, Acceptance, Rejection, and Hesitancy.Elizabeth Noelattests to the flaunting display of the guests at the White Sulphur when she writes her daughter, “I was in the parlor one night, it gave me the ache to see so much promenading, & so much finery … The bell[e] of the place is a Mrs. Vivian from the south, she dresses very fine, but dont wear hoops, there is every kind of dress & ever[y] kind of fashion here.

James D. Wooddeclares in a letter that the Red Sweet Springs is an “exceedingly pleasant place” where his party has “made many pleasant acquaintances” and “had an agreable trip.” Other visitors found the social scene at the springs less than satisfactory.John Minorwrites from the Hot Springs about suffering “solitary & alone cooped up in a little room 10 feet square.” In her private diary,Grace Fenton Hunterdeclares, “Nothing could be more monotonous than the time spent here,” and indicates she is bored at the Red Sulphur with the “same routine of walking to the spring, working a little, talking a little, or rather a great deal, frequently reading a little, and speaking to passing acquaintances.”R. T. Hubardinforms his wife from the White Sulphur that in spite of the presence of the President [Martin Van Buren] of the United States and other eminent men, he finds the place “as dull and uninteresting to me as possible.”

Hubarddescribes the Virginia springs as not only dull, but also offensive and perilous. He calls the White Sulphur “that sink hole of extravagance, gambling & vice for many young & unmarried men.” He hopes his sons will only go the springs for their health and that “Heaven in its mercy” will “guard & defend them from all the evil, the seductive & corrupting influences of those dull, disagreeable and dangerous places.”Thomas Jeffersonwas disappointed to find “little gay company” at Warm Springs in 1818 and expected to “pass a dull time.” When he decided to yield to the general advice of a three week course, it was not because he was enjoying himself. Rather, he wanted “to prevent the necessity of ever coming here a 2d time,” because “so dull a place, and distressing an ennui I never before knew.”

Proprietors of the springs realized that the difficulty of travel to remote locations hampered their business. In 1818 Thomas Jefferson described being “aggravated by the torment of long & rough roads.” Twenty years laterGrace Fenton Hunterwrote that her companion, “is just getting over the fatigue of the journey, which was enough to make a well person sick, much more invalids.” In the first half of the nineteenth century, dirt roads or trails were replaced by plank roads and paved roads. Carriages and stage coaches supplanted the necessity of arriving on foot or horseback. By mid century railroad lines headed west with the result that many springs could be reached by rail and then a short journey by stage.

Map of Routes & Distances to the Mineral Springs of Western Virginia {5}

Like other mid-nineteenth-century books about the springs, Dr. Burke’s second edition of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia includes a map of routes and distances to the various establishments from other parts of Virginia as well as between the various springs themselves. It was important to show how one would get from one spring to another as visitors often went to more than one, seeking a change in venue or eager to try waters credited with different advantages, depending on temperature and chemical analysis.John McLaughlin’sletter written in the summer of 1814, when travel would have been difficult, mentions his time at the White Sulphur, Hot, and Warm Springs, and declares his intention to visit the Sweet Springs.Grace Fenton Hunterspends six weeks at the Red Sulphur after making stops at the White Sulphur, Warm, Hot, and Salt Sulphur Springs.

Synopsis of Routes {6}

Dr. J. J. Moorman’s book, The Virginia Springs, gives a synopsis of travel routes within Virginia and slightly beyond. He includes not only distances but also the methods of conveyance: railroad, stage, canal boat, and steamboat. Thomas Jefferson also compiled his own personal mileage chart from Staunton to Warm Springs and rated taverns and inns along the way as very good, middling, or very bad. Several received a very good ranking with the caveat “if sober.”

The Civil War had a devastating effect on the springs. Instead of being locations for a summer retreat in the mountains, they were often sites of destruction. Dr. J. H. Hunter was appointed Inspector of Hospital Property at The Hot, Warm and Healing Springs in December 1861 and was instructed to report on damaged, missing, and stolen property. Occupied by both armies, some of the buildings at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs were damaged or destroyed by shelling. Pell Manning writes about fighting around those Springs and states that the hotel once able to accommodate 3000 people was “one mass of ruins ‘from turret to foundation stone.’”  All that was left of the Blue Sulphur Springs after the conflict was the pavilion over the springs.

The Great Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad!
This 1873 pronouncement by the C&O has a map showing the depot in White Sulphur Springs. It also lists places of interest, including six additional springs in Burke’s book reachable by stage coach. {8}

Some of the resorts never recovered from the war. Others took years to wade through the resultant financial upheaval. The Hot Springs was the subject of a case in the Circuit Court of Albemarle a decade after the 1858 death of the owner, Dr. Thomas Goode. Being “unproductive, deserted, far off from the world and the military centres, in a valley open to military raiders, deserters and stragglers” the property was sold by Goode’s executors for less than its debts. The University of Virginia Library has numerous White Sulphur Springs documents concerning liens, debts, creditors and failed Confederate bonds. G. W. Lewis wrote about the insolvent condition of White Sulphur in February 1867. Jeremiah Morton,a Director of the White Sulphur Springs Company, solicited help from the federal court in October 1873 as the property had nine liens on it and had sold all its furniture and stock on hand in 1861 for confederate bonds which proved a total loss. However, the White Sulpher Springs was the beneficiary of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway as it was the only spring that could claim direct rail service, the first train arriving in 1869.

Warm Springs, Men’s Bathhouse, Photo by Janet Pearson, 2009.

The twenty-first century finds the 11 springs written about by Dr. Burke in vastly different conditions. The White Sulphur Springs and the Hot Springs are the Greenbrier and Homestead resorts respectively. Both are luxury vacation destinations with three championship golf courses and elegant accommodations. The Warm Springs, now called the Jefferson Pools, are part of the Homestead and offer the same rustic bathing that Thomas Jefferson experienced in 1818. The men’s bath house is the oldest spa structure in Virginia and the one Jefferson used. The Rockbridge Alum Springs complex is a Young Life summer camp. The Red Sweet, Salt Sulphur, and Sweet Springs all have structures that have survived in various states of repair. There have been plans to restore the buildings at Sweet Springs and reopen as a resort. One guest house can be rented at Salt Sulphur.

Blue Sulphur Springs Pavilion, Photo by Janet Perarson, 2009.

Of the Blue Sulphur, only the Grecian temple pavilion remains. The structures associated with the eight springs just mentioned are on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fauquier Springs Country Club is located on the site of the old Fauquier White Sulphur Springs. No buildings are left at Dagger’s Spring. This is also true of Dr. Burke’s beloved Red Sulphur whose buildings were torn down during or after World War I.

Image Credits:

• {1} Burke, William. The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} Burke, William. The Virginia Mineral Springs. Richmond: Ritchies & Dunnavant, 1853: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {3} Mütter, Thomas D. The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {4} Moorman, John J. The Virginia Springs, and Springs of the South and West. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {5} Burke, William. The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846: facing title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {6} Moorman, John J. The Virginia Springs. Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, 1857: p. xv. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {7} Watkins, N. J. ed. The Pine and the Palm Greeting. Baltimore : J. D. Ehlers’ & Co.’s Engraving and Printing House, 1873: fold out between pages 52 and 53, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Notes:

• Burke, William. The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• Burke, William. The Mineral Springs of Virginia. Richmond: Morris & Brother, 1851.
• Burke, William. Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Wytheville: D. A. St. Clair, Printer, 1860.
• Burke, William. The Virginia Mineral Springs. Richmond: Ritchies & Dunnavant, 1853.
• Huntt, Henry. A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, during the Summer of 1837. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1839.
• Mütter, Thomas D. The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840.

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The post Introduction appeared first on Taking the Waters: 19th Century Medicinal Springs of Virginia.

A portion of the frontispiece from A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, during the summer of 1837 by Henry Huntt

Resources

• Arnold, Thomas Jackson. Early Life and Letters of General Thomas J. Jackson. New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1916. Accessed December 3, 2008. Google Book Search.
• Barringer family papers, 1828-1963, Accession #2588, Special Collections, University of Virginia.
• Betts, Edwin Morris and James Adam Bear, editors. The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson. Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1966.
• Burke, William. The Mineral Springs of Virginia. Richmond: Morris & Brother, 1851. (Also available on Google Books)
• —. The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846. (Also available on Google Books)
• —. Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Wytheville: D. A. St. Clair, Printer, 1860. (Also available on Google Books)
• —. The Virginia Mineral Springs. Richmond: Ritchies & Dunnavant, 1853.
• Cabell, J. L. An account of the Hot Springs, Bath County, Va. [Richmond?] : S.C. Tardy, 1873 (Richmond : Clemmitt & Jones), Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Campeachy Chair, “Monticello Explorer,” [electronic resource]. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• Commissioners’ sale of the Warm Springs, a celebrated watering place in Bath County, Virginia. [Lexington, Virginia, Virginia gazette print] 1871. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Cornett, Fielding. Letter to Miss Rosamond (Hale). Miscellaneous Virginia Papers, 1829-1905, Accession #8979-j, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Correspondence of Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge, 1810-1861, Accession #38-584, 9090, 9090-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Dagger’s White Sulphur Springs,” Lexington Gazette, July 17, 1838.
• Dick, Alexander, Journal of Alexander Dick in America 1806-1809 [edited by] Helen Beall Lewis. Helen Beall Lewis’ thesis (M.A.)–University of Virginia, 1984.
• Fauquier White Sulphur Springs (Hotel: Fauquier County, Va.), Fauquier White Sulphur Springs Va.: 50 miles, west from Washington, D.C, [Fauquier County, Va.: Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, 1846?] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Franklin Fretwell Papers, 1819-1886, Accession #11296, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Goode, G. Brown. Virginia Cousins: a Study of the Ancestry and Posterity of John Goode of Whitby. Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph & English, 1887.
• Goode, Thomas. The Invalid’s Guide to the Virginia Hot Springs. Richmond: P.D.Bernard, 1846.
• A Guide to the Hubard Family Papers 1749-1950, Accession Number 8039, 8039-a, 8039-b. A Collection in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Accessed July 20, 2009.
• A Guide to the John H. Hunter Papers, Accession Number 166, A Collection in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• Hotchkiss, Jedediah. Plan of Buildings at Rockbridge Alum Springs, Rockbridge Co., Virginia, 1869. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Howe, Henry. Historical Collections of Virginia. Charleston, S. C.: W. R. Babcock, 1847. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Howe, Henry. Woodblock Print of Views of White Sulphur Springs [manuscript] 1845. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Hubard Family Letters, 1838-74, Accession #7966, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Hunter-Garnett Family Papers, 1703-1970, Accession #38-45-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Huntt, Henry. A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia. Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1839.
• James Ball. Daguerreotype of the Greenbrier Resort, 1845, Accession #11531, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• James D. Wood Letter, 1843 Sep. 8, Accession #4422, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• James Presley Ball, “African American Registry,” [electronic resource]. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• Jefferson, Thomas. Letter to Thomas Ritchie. Article for The Richmond Enquirer Central College A letter from a correspondent of the Editor of the Enquirer, Warm Springs, August 1817. 68 Letters to and from Jefferson, 1805-1817. Accessed July 19, 2009.
• Jefferson, Thomas. Notes on the State of Virginia, Query VI. Accessed July 29, 2009.
• Jefferson, Thomas. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume X, 1816-1826. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899. (Also available on Google Books)
• John Harrison Hunter Papers, 1842-1888, Accession #166, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• John Hartwell Cocke, Papers, 1725-1931, Accession 640, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Joseph Carrington Cabell Papers, 1790-1890, Accession #38-111-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Letters of Edmund Randolph, 1810, Accession #9112, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Letters to Dr. George Byrd Harrison, 1885, Accession #12106, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Lewis Family, Papers, Accession #38-418, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Library of Congress American Memory: The Thomas Jefferson Papers. Accessed July 21, 2009.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog. Accessed July 21, 2009.
• Maria Magruder Thurman Collection, 1860-1936, Accession #38-367, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• McLaughlin-Redd papers, 177?-1867, Accession #38-470, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Miscellaneous Letters and Documents Collection, Accession #MS-33, Historical Collections, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.
• Miscellaneous Virginia Letters, 1820-1928, Accession #13495, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Moorman, John J. The Virginia Springs. Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857.
• —. The Virginia Springs of the South and West. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859. (Also available on Google Books)
• Morton-Halsey, Collection, 1786-1938, Accession #3995, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Morton, Oren F. A History of Monroe County, West Virginia. Staunton, Va.: McClure Company, 1916. (Also available on Google Books)
• Mutter, Thomas D. The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia. Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840.
• Nelson County Obits and Marriage extracts copied from the “Henley Marriage & Obituary Index” From the marriage and obituary citations compiled by Bernard J. Henley from Virginia newspapers on microfilm at the Library of Virginia. Accessed July 14, 2009.
• Page, John R. Concerning Hot Springs of Virginia. [Richmond]: I.N. Jones, Print., [1894] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of Alexander Garrett, 1812-1848, Accession #860, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of Alexander H. H. Stuart and the related Stuart and Baldwin families, Accession #228-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of the Baylor family of Newmarket, Caroline County, Va, Accession #2257, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of the Carter and Wellford family of Sabine Hall, 1650 (1736-1874) 1936, Accession #1959, -a, -c, #2658, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of the Hunter and Garnett families, 1704-1940, Accession #38-45,863, 837, 1262, 1896, 4034, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of the Hunter and Garnett families, 1704-1940, Accession #38-45,863, 837, 1262, 1896, 4034, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Virgo record
• Papers of the Hunter-Garnett Family [manuscript] 1703-1970 (bulk, 1770-1880) online guide.
• Papers of the Randolph family of Edgehill and Wilson Cary Nicholas, 1725-1826, Accession #5533, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of the Stuart, Baldwin, and Robertson Families, 1859-1926, Accession #10378-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Papers of Thomas Jefferson and other noted Revolutionary War figures, 1770-1822, Tracy W. McGregor Library, Accession #3620, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Parker, Franklin.“Robert E. Lee, George Peabody, and Sectional Reunion.”Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 37, No. 4 (Jan., 1960), pp. 195-202. [electronic resource]. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• Pell Manning Letter, 1863 Aug. 25, Accession #8435, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Randolph-Meikleham family papers, 1792-1882, Accession #4726-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Robert E. Lee, Letter to Charles S. Venable, 1866 July 6, Accession #5655-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Robert T. Hubard Farm Journal, 1834-1846, Accession #8039-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Rockbridge Alum Springs, Announcement for 1891. Its Attractions As a Summer Resort. Testimonials. Richmond, Va.: E. Waddey Co., 1891. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Rockbridge Alum Springs, Incorporated: the King among Mineral Waters ; Endorsed by the Highest Medical Authorities, [Rockbridge County, Va. : s.n., between 1883 and 1900.] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Rockbridge Alum Springs, John E. Tappan, Manager. Supper, Friday July 28, 1899. Rockbridge, Va., 1899. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Rogers, William Barton. A Reprint of Annual Reports and Other Papers, on the Geology of the Virginias. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1884. Photocopy. University of Virginia Library. (Also available on Google Books)
• Septimia Anne Randolph Meikleham, The Jefferson Encyclopedia [electronic resource]. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• Strother, David Hunter. Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1857, University of Virginia Library.
• Sweet Chalybeate Springs Papers, 1892-1916, Accession #38-16, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Sweet Springs (West Virginia), Hotel Registers covering the years 1870-72, 1884-86, 1888, 1897, 1908, 2 volumes, Accession #421, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Tardy, defendant. Cameron’s ex’ix v. Goode’s ex’r, &c. Note for Tardy and others, defendants. [N.p., 186-?] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Thomas Jefferson University Archives and Special Collections: Thomas D. Mutter Collection.
• Thomas Staples Martin: Senator, Leader, Virginian, Capturing Our Heritage, Scottsville Museum. [electronic resource]. Accessed June 23, 2010.
• University of Virginia. Library. Annual Report on Historical Collections, University of Virginia Library, vol. 14. Charlottesville, 1943-44. (Also available online.)
• University of Virginia Visual History Collection, Image Filename: prints 08141, 10045, 10046, and 16157. Accessed July 21, 2009.
• Venable, Mary S. “Virginia Boundary Line ‘Dip’ Traced to Ancient Rivalry,” Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 16, 1936.
• Virginia Historical Society. Hunter Family Papers, 1766-1918, Mss1 H9196 a FA2.
• W. B. Towles Medical Case Book, 1885, Accession #11532, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Warm Springs Valley Company. Deed : Warm Springs Valley Co., to Southern Improvement Co.: Healing Springs, Hot Springs, and Warm Springs. : [Richmond? Va.: s.n., 1890] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• Watkins, N. J. ed. The Pine and the Palm Greeting. Baltimore : J. D. Ehlers’ & Co.’s Engraving and Printing House, 1873.
• Wikimedia Commons: Edmund Randolph.

Credits

This exhibit was written and organized by Janet Pearson, a member of the staff of Historical Collections and Services, under the direction of Joan Echtenkamp Klein, the Alvin V. and Nancy Baird Curator for Historical Collections at The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia. Claudia Sueyras, Normajean Hultman, and Sonya Coleman did preliminary research. Rod Martin and Victoria Meyer scanned items from Historical Collections and the Charles L. Brown Science & Engineering Library. David Moody, with the assistance of Bart Ragon, provided the programming architecture for the Web exhibit. Sonya Coleman contributed to the design elements.

Special thanks to the very helpful staff at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia, as they retrieved dozens of documents and also to the Digital Curation Services staff for their expertise at scanning so many of these documents. The exhibit was inspired by The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia by William Burke, the first item purchased by the Weaver Family Endowed Rare Book and Medical Materials Fund which was generously established by Margaret Carr Weaver Crosson, Evelyn Dabney Weaver Dwyer, and Edgar Newman “Wink” Weaver, Jr., M.D.

For permission to reproduce any of the text or images owned by Historical Collections and Services or to make comments or suggestions, please contact a member of Historical Collections.

Welcome          Introductory Essay          First Spring: Blue Sulphur

The post Resources and Credits appeared first on Taking the Waters: 19th Century Medicinal Springs of Virginia.

Edward Beyer’s print of Hot Springs from the Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

The title page to Burke’s 1846 edition of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia which has been scanned in its entirety and is part of the University of Virginia digital text collection. {1}

This exhibit showcases a number of original nineteenth-century letters and documents, housed in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, that relate to the 11 springs (Warm, Hot, Sweet, Red-Sweet, White Sulphur, Red Sulphur, Salt Sulphur, Blue Sulphur, Daggers’ or Dibrell’s, Rockbridge Alum, and Fauquier White Sulphur) that Dr. William Burke wrote about in the second edition of his book, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia. Dr. Burke’s book was entered into the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York in 1842 and published in 1846, four years after the first edition. This is the first book purchased with the Weaver Family Endowed Rare Book and Medical Materials Fund, created in honor and memory of Edgar Newman Weaver, M.D., Evelyn Richards Weaver, and David Delmar Weaver, M.D., by Margaret Carr Weaver Crosson, Evelyn Dabney Weaver Dwyer, and Edgar Newman “Wink” Weaver, Jr., M.D. The book is housed in Historical Collections, The Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.

William Burke, whose book provides the starting point for this exhibit, was the owner of Red Sulphur Springs in what is now Monroe County, West Virginia. He first visited these springs in 1829 as an invalid. He purchased them in 1832 and transformed the property both by replacing the small, windowless cabins with spacious and conveniently arranged buildings and also by removing trees to permit the sun to reach what had previously been a gloomy gorge. According to Henry Huntt who recorded his visit to the Red Sulphur in 1837, the servants were “prompt and obedient,” and the dining table was “abundantly supplied with every variety of viands that can tempt the appetite.” {Huntt, 19} In The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, Burke writes that he “surrendered possession of the property by a deed or contract recorded in the County Court of Monroe,” moved to Richmond, and in early 1842 divested himself “of every residuary interest in the estate.” {Burke, 169} While no longer an owner by the time his second edition was published in 1846, it is clear that he continued to have ties to these springs, and he gave precedence to the Red Sulphur in his book, devoting more than one third of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia to this particular spring.

The title of Burke’s 1853 edition, The Virginia Mineral Springs, allowed him to include springs from all of Virginia not just the western part. {2}

Dr. Burke also wrote The Mineral Springs of Virginia. The preface to his first edition, published in 1851, states that he chose to re-write his first book and issue it as a new work. He admits, “In the course of the former publications, I became involved in controversies and personalities, as foreign from my taste and disposition as they were uninteresting to the public. These and other irrelevant matters I have discarded from the present work.” Indeed, his main antagonist in his first book is Dr. J. J. Moorman, a fellow author and resident physician at the White Sulphur Springs. Ten percent of Dr. Burke’s 1846 volume, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, is devoted to his disagreement with Dr. Moorman concerning the effectiveness of White Sulphur Springs’ water that no longer contained “sulphuretted hydrogen gas.” Inflammatory statements present in Burke’s first book are removed from his reworked 1851 volume. For example, this caustic 1846 assessment of Dr. Moorman is excised: “His facts are without foundation in truth; his arguments puerile and shallow; his theories untenable; his absurdities ridiculous; his motives palpable and culpable; and his efforts to bolster up a selfish practice, a gross imposition.” {Burke, 172} With a second edition of The Mineral Springs of Virginia, newly titled The Virginia Mineral Springs, in 1853, Burke was able to do what he had hoped to do in the first edition. He visited the eastern group of the Virginia springs and included chapters on Jordan’s White Sulphur, Shannondale, Berkeley, Orrick’s Sulphur, and Capon Springs as well as inserted additional information on springs written about earlier.

Dr. Burke was married and had at least one daughter and one son. Grace Fenton Hunter visited the Red Sulphur Springs for over a month in 1838 and mentioned Dr. B., presumably Dr. Burke, and Mrs. Burke a number of times in her diary. Hunter described Mrs. Burke, with whom she exchanged numerous visits, as a “kind” and “sensible woman, talkative, and more agreeable than the generality of persons.” She also wrote that Mrs. Burke and her daughter played music and sang. In the introduction to his small book, Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, published in 1860, Dr. Burke stated that the professional experience at the Red Sulphur of his son, Thomas J. Burke, totaled 18 years. William Burke was still visiting the establishment in the late 1850s as Red Sulphur Springs has several testimonial letters that placed the writers and Dr. Burke at these springs in the summer of 1859.

As William Burke makes clear, the Virginia springs were a destination for both the invalid and the vigorous. Some sought healing from an array of diseases. Every malady from indigestion and bronchitis to consumption, paralysis, and “diseases peculiar to females” had its sufferers seeking a cure by “taking the waters.” Dr. Burke expounds on the incongruity of the juxtaposition of those desperately seeking a restoration of health and those at the springs for the sake of entertainment or socializing. “The invalid, pale, emaciated, and wretched, may be seen there at almost every hour, waiting till the giddy dance of the gay and volatile, who came there merely to gratify ‘a truant disposition,’ shall leave the waters free for him to drink and be healed. The feverish flush, the hectic of consumption, the tottering gait of rheumatism, the wasted form of the dyspeptic, may all be observed in contrast with the ruddy glow of manly health, the free elastic step of youthful vigor, the gay smile of unpained hearts, and the loud laugh of mirth that knows not even the check of another’s sufferings.” {Burke, 1846, p. 133}

Dr. Mütter’s book was written after he visited the Salt Sulphur for health reasons. {3}

Reputable physicians attested to the healing aspects of the various mineral waters. Thomas D. Mütter, Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia called the Salt Sulphur “one of the most valuable of our remedial agents” in a range of diseases. {Mutter, 19} Henry Huntt, a personal physician to Presidents James Monroe, John Q. Adams, and Andrew Jackson, extolled the virtues of Dr. Burke’s Red Sulphur Springs. Drs. James L. Cabell and John S. Davis, both Professors in the medical school at the University of Virginia, gave an endorsement for the mineral water from Rockbridge Alum Springs as useful in myriad diseases. Cabell, also a resident physician at the Hot Springs, authored a treatise on the value of the thermal baths on disorders as varied as deafness and rheumatism. Dr. William Beverly Towles, Professor of Anatomy at the University of Virginia, cared for patients at the Hot Springs as evidenced by his Case Book for 1885.

The letters from Special Collections reflect a range of spring experiences and expectations. Written to family and friends they probably give a more truthful assessment of the waters than the resident physicians and property owners or the testimonials they solicited. Some of the letters are very encouraging. Burl Fretwell writes that he brought a woman, probably his wife, home from the Alum Springs, and a cough of two years duration had finally cleared up. John McLaughlin attests to the benefits of the springs and says his health is better than it had been for many months. James D. Wood, writing from his third spring in three weeks, declares that his general health is “greatly improved.”

Other writers are hopeful but describe mixed results in terms of their health at the springs. Randolph Harrison thought he was recovering at the Alum Springs, but then came down with a fever that “took all the starch out of me.” After spending a month at the Red Sulphur, Grace Fenton Hunter writes in a letter that she has “gained flesh, and also strength,” but her diary entry for the same day states that she “read and worked as usual, but feeling badly did little of either.” R. T. Hubard at the White Sulphur corresponds with his wife indecisively, “I spent one week at the Sweet Springs and returned here yesterday morning. The Sweet Spring water & bath improved my health, I think, a little, tho not much. Indeed I fear that my health will not be greatly improved by my trip.” J. S. Martin writes, “I had perceived no benefit (or very little) from the Water here.” His letter from White Sulphur mentions hope four times, including, “I feel that I shall improve now & hope my next [letter] may be more cheerful.”

Some correspondents realize their health has definitely not improved at the springs. John Minor feels worse at the Hot Springs and considers himself to be “much weaker & more reduced than I ever was before.” Edmund Randolph tries the Warm Springs for his paralysis to no avail. Till enjoys the baths at the Warm Springs but asks a granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson about the pain in her breast, says she herself suffers from it, and declares, “I was not improved by my excursion, I have been sick almost constantly since I came home and my cough is worse than it ever has been. Sometimes I think, at least I am afraid that I am quite in bad health.”

Thomas Jefferson’s visit to the Warm Springs in August 1818 covers a wide range of experiences. He describes the bath as “delicious” and within a week calls the spring with the Hot and Warm “of the first merit.” He also presumes that the “seeds of his rheumatism” are “eradicated.” But the passing of another week brings an alarming occurrence. He tells his daughter, “I do not know what may be the effect of this course of bathing on my constitution; but I am under great threats that it will work it’s effect thro’ a system of boils.” Indeed, he claims that he suffers “prostrated health from the use of the waters” with abscesses, fever, sweats, and extreme debility. In December his summer visit still finds its way into a letter, “my trial of the Warm springs was certainly ill advised. for I went to them in perfect health, and ought to have reflected that remedies of their potency must have effect some way or other. if they find disease they remove it; if none, they make it.”

Many who went to the baths were not seeking improvement in their health but visited to enjoy various amusements that included gaming, drinking, dancing, carriage rides, horseback riding, and ten-pin alleys. This is reflected in the receipts for White Sulphur Springs in 1860 showing substantial sums collected for the bar and the shooting gallery. Some hoped to meet their future spouse while enjoying the waters. R. T. Hubard upon seeing Randolph Harrison at the White Sulphur Springs suspects Harrison is “in pursuit of a wife.”

Dr. Moorman’s birds-eye view of White Sulphur shows the romantically named walking paths and lists the names of 20 people who had their own cottage. {4}

This birds-eye view of the White Sulphur, published in 1859, shows the location of the bath house and several springs, but also the winding paths through the grove of trees south of the creek with names such as Lovers Walk, Lovers Leap, Lovers Rest, Way to Paradise, Courtship Maze, Acceptance, Rejection, and Hesitancy. Elizabeth Noel attests to the flaunting display of the guests at the White Sulphur when she writes her daughter, “I was in the parlor one night, it gave me the ache to see so much promenading, & so much finery … The bell[e] of the place is a Mrs. Vivian from the south, she dresses very fine, but dont wear hoops, there is every kind of dress & ever[y] kind of fashion here.

James D. Wood declares in a letter that the Red Sweet Springs is an “exceedingly pleasant place” where his party has “made many pleasant acquaintances” and “had an agreable trip.” Other visitors found the social scene at the springs less than satisfactory. John Minor writes from the Hot Springs about suffering “solitary & alone cooped up in a little room 10 feet square.” In her private diary, Grace Fenton Hunter declares, “Nothing could be more monotonous than the time spent here,” and indicates she is bored at the Red Sulphur with the “same routine of walking to the spring, working a little, talking a little, or rather a great deal, frequently reading a little, and speaking to passing acquaintances.” R. T. Hubard informs his wife from the White Sulphur that in spite of the presence of the President [Martin Van Buren] of the United States and other eminent men, he finds the place “as dull and uninteresting to me as possible.”

Hubard describes the Virginia springs as not only dull, but also offensive and perilous. He calls the White Sulphur “that sink hole of extravagance, gambling & vice for many young & unmarried men.” He hopes his sons will only go the springs for their health and that “Heaven in its mercy” will “guard & defend them from all the evil, the seductive & corrupting influences of those dull, disagreeable and dangerous places.” Thomas Jefferson was disappointed to find “little gay company” at Warm Springs in 1818 and expected to “pass a dull time.” When he decided to yield to the general advice of a three week course, it was not because he was enjoying himself. Rather, he wanted “to prevent the necessity of ever coming here a 2d time,” because “so dull a place, and distressing an ennui I never before knew.”

Proprietors of the springs realized that the difficulty of travel to remote locations hampered their business. In 1818 Thomas Jefferson described being “aggravated by the torment of long & rough roads.” Twenty years later Grace Fenton Hunter wrote that her companion, “is just getting over the fatigue of the journey, which was enough to make a well person sick, much more invalids.” In the first half of the nineteenth century, dirt roads or trails were replaced by plank roads and paved roads. Carriages and stage coaches supplanted the necessity of arriving on foot or horseback. By mid century railroad lines headed west with the result that many springs could be reached by rail and then a short journey by stage.

Map of Routes & Distances to the Mineral Springs of Western Virginia {5}

Like other mid-nineteenth-century books about the springs, Dr. Burke’s second edition of The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia includes a map of routes and distances to the various establishments from other parts of Virginia as well as between the various springs themselves. It was important to show how one would get from one spring to another as visitors often went to more than one, seeking a change in venue or eager to try waters credited with different advantages, depending on temperature and chemical analysis. John McLaughlin’s letter written in the summer of 1814, when travel would have been difficult, mentions his time at the White Sulphur, Hot, and Warm Springs, and declares his intention to visit the Sweet Springs. Grace Fenton Hunter spends six weeks at the Red Sulphur after making stops at the White Sulphur, Warm, Hot, and Salt Sulphur Springs.

Synopsis of Routes {6}

Dr. J. J. Moorman’s book, The Virginia Springs, gives a synopsis of travel routes within Virginia and slightly beyond. He includes not only distances but also the methods of conveyance: railroad, stage, canal boat, and steamboat. Thomas Jefferson also compiled his own personal mileage chart from Staunton to Warm Springs and rated taverns and inns along the way as very good, middling, or very bad. Several received a very good ranking with the caveat “if sober.”

The Civil War had a devastating effect on the springs. Instead of being locations for a summer retreat in the mountains, they were often sites of destruction. Dr. J. H. Hunter was appointed Inspector of Hospital Property at The Hot, Warm and Healing Springs in December 1861 and was instructed to report on damaged, missing, and stolen property. Occupied by both armies, some of the buildings at Fauquier White Sulphur Springs were damaged or destroyed by shelling. Pell Manning writes about fighting around those Springs and states that the hotel once able to accommodate 3000 people was “one mass of ruins ‘from turret to foundation stone.’”  All that was left of the Blue Sulphur Springs after the conflict was the pavilion over the springs.

The Great Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad! This 1873 pronouncement shows the White Sulphur Springs’ depot. Its places of interest include six more springs in Burke’s book reachable by stage coach. {7}

Some of the resorts never recovered from the war while others took years to wade through the resultant financial upheaval. The Hot Springs was the subject of a case in the Circuit Court of Albemarle a decade after the 1858 death of the owner, Dr. Thomas Goode. Being “unproductive, deserted, far off from the world and the military centres, in a valley open to military raiders, deserters and stragglers” the property was sold by Goode’s executors for less than its debts. The University of Virginia Library has numerous White Sulphur Springs documents concerning liens, debts, creditors, and failed Confederate bonds. G. W. Lewis wrote about the insolvent condition of White Sulphur in February 1867 and its deleterious effect on the estate of Robert Wormeley Carter. Jeremiah Morton, a Director of the White Sulphur Springs Company, solicited help from the federal court in October 1873 as the property had nine liens on it and had sold all its furniture and stock on hand in 1861 for confederate bonds which proved a total loss. However, the White Sulpher Springs was the beneficiary of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway as it was the only spring that could claim direct rail service with the first train arriving in 1869.

Warm Springs, Men’s Bathhouse, Photo by Janet Pearson, 2009.

The twenty-first century finds the eleven springs written about by Dr. Burke in vastly different conditions. The White Sulphur Springs and the Hot Springs are the Greenbrier and Homestead resorts respectively. Both are luxury vacation destinations with three championship golf courses and elegant accommodations. The Warm Springs, now called the Jefferson Pools, are part of the Homestead and offer the same rustic bathing that Thomas Jefferson experienced in 1818. The men’s bath house is the oldest spa structure in Virginia and the one Jefferson used. The Rockbridge Alum Springs complex is a Young Life summer camp. The Red Sweet, Salt Sulphur, and Sweet Springs all have structures that have survived in various states of repair. Plans to restore the buildings at Sweet Springs and reopen as a resort have been halted. One guest house can be rented at Salt Sulphur.

Blue Sulphur Springs Pavilion, Photo by Janet Pearson, 2009.

Of the Blue Sulphur, only the Grecian temple pavilion remains. The structures associated with the eight springs just mentioned are on the National Register of Historic Places. The Fauquier Springs Country Club is located on the site of the old Fauquier White Sulphur Springs. No buildings are left at Dagger’s Spring. This is also true of Dr. Burke’s beloved Red Sulphur whose buildings were torn down during or after World War I. See the Springs in a Google map with recent photos.

Image Credits:

• {1} William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} William Burke, The Virginia Mineral Springs, Richmond: Ritchies & Dunnavant, 1853: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {3} Thomas D. Mütter, The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840: title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {4} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs, and Springs of the South and West, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {5} William Burke,  The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846: facing title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {6} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Va.: J. W. Randolph, 1857: p. xv. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {7} N. J. Watkins, ed., The Pine and the Palm Greeting, Baltimore : J. D. Ehlers’ & Co.’s Engraving and Printing House, 1873: fold out between pages 52 and 53, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Sources:

• William Burke,  The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Virginia, Richmond: Morris & Brother, 1851.
• William Burke, Red Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, Wytheville: D. A. St. Clair, Printer, 1860.
• William Burke, The Virginia Mineral Springs, Richmond: Ritchies & Dunnavant, 1853.
• Henry Huntt, A Visit to the Red Sulphur Spring of Virginia, during the Summer of 1837, Boston: Dutton and Wentworth, 1839.
• Thomas D. Mütter, The Salt Sulphur Springs, Monroe County, Virginia, Philadelphia: T.K. & P.G. Collins, 1840.

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An amendment to the charter indicates that on November 30, 1889, a certificate of incorporation and charter was granted to the Company. The said Company organized on Dec. 13, 1889 and quickly acquired the ownership of the Warm Springs and Healing Springs with the anticipation of acquiring the legal title to the Hot Springs.

Warm Springs Valley Company. Deed : Warm Springs Valley Co., to Southern Improvement Co.: Healing Springs, Hot Springs, and Warm Springs. : [Richmond? Va.: s.n., 1890] Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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All who have described this noble fountain, write with enthusiasm; nor is it indeed to be wondered at, for the world may well be challenged for its equal. Its temperature, buoyancy, refractive power, transparency – all invest it with indescribable luxury to the feelings and to the sight.   William Burke

Edward Beyer’s print of Warm Springs published in 1857. {1}

William Burke on the Warm Springs.

The Warm Springs, later called the Jefferson Pools, are only five miles from Hot Springs and located in the aptly named Bath County of Virginia. Legend has it that a young Indian traveling more than 200 years before the printing of Burke’s book happened on the spring when he was weary and dispirited. Coming upon the narrow valley filled with water, he first tasted, and then plunged into, the warm waters. Refreshed and invigorated, he continued his trek the next day successfully reaching his destination. Whether this tale is true is debatable, but it is accepted that the waters were used both for bathing and therapy in the later part of the eighteenth century. In the western area of Virginia, Warm Springs and Sweet Springs were the first two springs to be visited by great multitudes.

The brick hotel associated with the springs had accommodations for about 100 people and offered good fare. Burke found the establishment clean and neat with “servants among the best in Virginia.” The octagonal bath house was forty feet from angle to opposite angle and five to six feet deep with a gravelly bottom. The day was divided into two hour periods with men and women alternately occupying the pool. A white flag flew when women were taking the bath. The 96 degree water was plentiful enough that if the bath was drained, it could be replenished in 15 minutes to an hour. Nearby springs, one also warm and another cold, were used for drinking. Children and the “more aged and infirm” used another smaller bath.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at Warm Springs.

The Warm Springs as drawn by Porte Crayon in 1857. {2}

Burke included a lengthy article about Warm Springs published in the Southern Literary Messenger in 1838. The article indicated that the analysis of the water by Professor William Rogers from the University of Virginia showed that the gas bubbling up was mainly nitrogen with small amounts of sulphuretted hydrogen (hydrogen sulfide) and carbonic acid. These same gases were found within the water as well as salts including magnesium sulfate or Epsom Salts. These salts and gases worked as gentle diuretics and laxatives. The Messenger paper indicated that the waters were not a panacea in all cases and that the baths were best avoided by those with a high fever or a full stomach, but had been effective in dyspepsia of long standing, chronic rheumatism, and paralytic afflictions especially if the patient bathed in the water and drank the water for a period of time.

Calling the Warm Spring bath “one of the greatest subjects of curiosity in Western Virginia, Burke also cautioned about the “sunny side of the picture” and wrote, “… it is necessary that the traveller should know there is danger in the indulgence. Experience, fatal in some cases, has taught this fact.” He proceeded to explain that the nitrogen in the lovely bubbles rising to the surface of the spring had the potential to cause “great distress in the pulmonary apparatus.” Burke was careful to write that most people could enjoy and benefit from the bath and included the Messenger paper so that readers could judge for themselves the various merits and dangers.

Thomas Jefferson and Warm Springs.

Thomas Jefferson was at Warm Springs in August 1817 and saw the need for a resident physician to attend those seeking healing at the various springs. Anticipating men like Dr. Burke at Red Sulphur Springs, Dr. Moorman at White Sulphur Springs, and Dr. Goode at Hot Springs, he wrote, “it would be money well bestowed could the public employ a well educated and experienced physician to attend at each of the medicinal springs, to observe, record, and publish the cases which recieve benefit, those recieving none, and those rendered worse by the use of their respective waters.” {Jefferson}

“… tried once to-day the delicious bath and shall do it twice a day hereafter … but little gay company here at this time, and I rather expect to pass a dull time.”

With the hope of helping his rheumatism, Thomas Jefferson revisited Warm Springs in 1818. His initial assessment of the effect of the spring water was positive but his visit led to near-disastrous results. On August 4, he wrote his daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, “Every body tells me the time I allot to the Springs is too short. That 2. or 3. weeks bathing will be essential. I shall know better when I get there.” {Betts and Bear, 423} Three days later Jefferson wrote Martha that he had journeyed by horseback to the springs and had “tried once to-day the delicious bath and shall do it twice a day hereafter.” He described the table as well kept and the other guests numbering about 45, “but little gay company here at this time, and I rather expect to pass a dull time.” {Betts and Bear, 424}

“… so dull a place, and distressing an ennui I never before knew. … the spring with the Hot and Warm are those of the first merit. The sweet springs retain esteem, but in limited cases.”

One week later on August 14, 1818, Jefferson wrote his daughter that he continued to bathe for 15 minutes three times a day and presumed that the seeds of his rheumatism were eradicated. He decided to yield to the general advice of a three week course. He wanted “to prevent the necessity of ever coming here a 2d time” because, “so dull a place, and distressing an ennui I never before knew.” While he found little to enliven his time, he did write, “the spring with the Hot and Warm are those of the first merit. The sweet springs retain esteem, but in limited cases.” {Betts and Bear, 425}

“A large swelling on my seat, increasing for several days past in size and hardness disables me from sitting but on the corner of a chair.”

The tone of his letter on August 21st changed substantially. He wrote his daughter, “I do not know what may be the effect of this course of bathing on my constitution; but I am under great threats that it will work it’s effect thro’ a system of boils. A large swelling on my seat, increasing for several days past in size and hardness disables me from sitting but on the corner of a chair. Another swelling begins to manifest itself to-day on the other seat.” {Betts and Bear, 426}

Library of Congress, 3

Library of Congress, 3

Library of Congress, 3

Thomas Jefferson was not the only member of his family to visit the springs in western Virginia. On July 31st, 1795 Jefferson wrote his daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, “We have no letter from you since your arrival at the Warm-springs, but are told you are gone on to the sweet springs.” {Betts and Bear, 134} Presumably Martha’s spring visits had happier results than her father’s later visit.

Thomas Jefferson’s table of mileages from Warm Springs, Virginia, to Staunton, Virginia, rates taverns and inns as very good, middling, or very bad. Several are ranked very good with the caveat “if sober.” {4}

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Diary by John Baylor, 1805: Baylor’s diary includes visits to various springs and notations of mileage, expenses, and lodging.
• Letter from John Baylor, 1805: Baylor describes his physical condition and his visit to the “Sulphur Springs” the day before. Probably referring to White Sulphur Springs, he writes that the springs’ buildings are constructed of logs and the offensive smell of the water is like “a dirty Barrel of a gun.”
• Diary of Alexander Dick, 1806: Dick mentions log huts; the smell of the copious spring; 50 to 60 people with attendant servants, horses, and carriages; one man who slept in the springs at night; and a near drowning.
• Letter from Edmund Randolph to Doctor Joshua E. R. Birch, October 10, 1810: This former governor of Virginia seeks advice for help with his paralysis which his trip to the Warm Springs did not alleviate.
• Letter from Till [Matilda Palmer]? 1833: Till writes Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughter that she was initially alarmed at Warm Springs’ strong sulphur smell, smoke, and rumbling noise, but became accustomed to it and enjoyed the bathing. The excursion did not improve her health which she fears is quite bad.
• Letter from Wm. W. Harvie, 1853: As guardian of the children of the recently deceased Dr. Brockenbrough, Harvie wants to buy the Warm Springs stock not already owned by the Brockenbrough estate.
• Diary of Philip St. George Cocke, 1853: Cocke mentions people he has met at Warm Springs in a diary that also discusses the early history of the Warm Springs Company.
• Letter from the Medical Director of the Army of West Virginia, 1861: Dr. Hunter is instructed to inspect and inventory hospital property at the Healing, Hot and Warm Springs.
• Letter from Robert E. Lee, 1866: Lee writes Professor Venable that he is taking his wife to the Rockbridge Baths and possibly to Warm Springs.
• Commissioners’ sale of the Warm Springs, 1871: This broadside advertises the Warm Springs as the “Paradise of watering places.”
• Charter of the Warm Springs Valley Company, [1890]: The Charter states the purposes of the Company is to include acquiring, improving, and operating the Warm, Hot, and Healing Springs.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This form for the Warm Springs is dated April 23, 1969. It includes the history and significance of the springs, a description of the two bath houses, one map, and a bibliography.
• National Register of Historic Places, Warm Springs bath houses: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Bath County, Virginia.
• National Register of Historic Places bath house photo: View a photo of the men’s bath house.
• “Springs Time” by Lisa Provence: This Washington Post article describes the delights of the pools at Warm Springs.
• Jefferson Pools Warm Springs Bath County Virginia: View interior and exterior photos of the baths.
• Jefferson Pools: The current owner’s official Web site gives a history of the Jefferson pools (Warm Springs).
• Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on the State of Virginia: In Jefferson’s section titled “Productions mineral, vegetable and animal,” he includes information about medicinal springs, one of which is Warm Springs.

Image Credits:

• {1} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {2} David HunterStrother, Virginia Illustrated: Containing a Visit to the Virginian Canaan, and the Adventures of Porte Crayon [pseud.] and His Cousins, New York, Harper & Brothers, 1857: p. 135.
• {3} Library of Congress American Memory: The Thomas Jefferson Papers. Search by date of the letter to see a higher resolution image.Accessed July 21, 2009.
• {4} Papers of Thomas Jefferson and other noted Revolutionary War figures, 1770-1822, Tracy W. McGregor Library, Accession #3620, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Sources:

• Edwin Morris Betts and James Adam Bear, editors, The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1966.
• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.
• Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Thomas Ritchie, Article for the Richmond Enquirer “Central College, A letter from a correspondent of the Editor of the Enquirer,” Warm Springs, August 1817. 68 Letters to and from Jefferson, 1805-1817. Accessed July 19, 2009.

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Papers of the Baylor family of Newmarket, Caroline County, Va, Accession #2257, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Excerpt from Baylor’s letter

Mr. Baylor, writing early in the nineteenth century from Warm Springs, describes his visit the day before to the Sulphur Springs which probably refers to the White Sulphur Springs. He states that the dining hall and huts for families were made of logs. He also comments on the offensive smell of the water. For more on the Baylor family click on the Complete Guide to the Baylor Family Papers. See also the Diary of John Baylor.

Papers of the Baylor family of Newmarket, Caroline County, Va, Accession #2257, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Portion of Edward Beyer’s print: Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

A Scottish accountant, Alexander Dick, was sent by Parliament in 1806 to investigate pre-Revolutionary War debts. He spent several years in the United States and kept a diary of his journeys. To escape the summer heat of Richmond he traveled to the mountains of Virginia and visited both Warm Springs and Hot Springs. Preserved in the University of Virginia Library, the diary is fragile, but has been made accessible by Helen Lewis who wrote her master’s thesis based on it. His entry for August 29th described the Warm Springs.

“This is a very Singular looking place—It is Situated in a deep hollow Surrounded on all Sides by high Mountains—There is a tavern with a number of log huts & Cabins all round it for the accomodation [sic] of the Compy—There is also a Court House & Goal. –The Spring is a most Copious one indeed. It forces itself up with great Violence by different issues which Cover a Considerable Span of ground & the run from which when Collected is Sufficient to turn a Grist Mill—The bason of the principal Spring is 50 feet in diameter & 5 or 6 feet deep in the Center—The Water is very clear & transparent, but has a bluish Cast & a pretty Strong Sulpherous Smell. The temperature when it issues from the earth is 96 degrees & in the Morning when the Air is Cool a Steam rises from it all along in the Valley as from boiling Water—It is a very great Curiosity indeed. There are at present about 50 or 60 people here with all their Horses & Carriages & Servants. The Spring is recommended in Rheumatic Complaints & we were told of one Person who felt So much relief while in it that he Slept immersed in it all night for 5 or 6 nights Successively—People who bathe in it Say they experience a most agreeable Sensation. It is also drank & operates as a Cathartic & diuretic—The bason is So deep that a Mr Marx of Richmd. was almost drowned in it a few days ago havg got beyond his depth & not being able to Swim” {Dick, p. 288-9}

Sir Alexander Dick, Journal of Alexander Dick in America 1806-1809 / [edited by] Helen Beall Lewis, Master’s Thesis, University of Virginia, 1984.

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John Hartwell Cocke, Papers, 1725-1931, Accession 640, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Richmond July 22nd. 1853
Genl J. H. Cocke
Dear Sir
There are standing in your name in the books of the Warm Springs Co. 5 shares of stock. Dr. Brockenbrough during his life had from time to time purchased the interests of different parties until at his death he owned about 5/6ths of the whole. As guardian of his two adopted children, to whom the whole of his estate has been divised by Mrs. Brockenbrough, I am endeavoring to buy up the remainder of the stock. The price he paid for it and at which I have already the interests of several other part is $75 a share. If you are willing to sell at that price, I would be obliged to you to address me a letter to that effect and I will send you the form of the deed required and a check for the money.
I am, Very Resp’y
Yrs. &c
Wm. W. Harvie
P.S. Please address your letter to me at the “Warm Springs, Bath C.H.”

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Robert E. Lee, Letter to Charles S. Venable, 1866 July 6, Accession #5655-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Edmund Randolph, Source Wikimedia Commons

Letters of Edmund Randolph, 1810, Accession #9112, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Excerpt from Till’s letter showing the address

Randolph-Meikleham family papers, 1792-1882, Accession #4726-a, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Philip St. George Cocke Diaries, 1853 and 1860, Accession #2433-v, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, VA 22903.

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James D. Wood Letter, 1843 Sep. 8, Accession #4422, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Red Springs 8th. Sept. 1843
Dear Sir,
As you were kind enough to start & ride with us when I left home I could but believe you took some interest in our welfare & prosperity – We spent 12 days at the Allum Springs & were benefited myself more than Susan. We staid next 8 days at the Hot Springs: Susan was sick there one day which was rather a draw back. & yesterday we arrived here, an exceedingly pleasant place: I think she is improving Considerably We have made many pleasant acquaintances and upon the whole. so far had an agreable trip: we expect to remain here untill about the 15th. & then for home –
I think I have gained some 15 or 20 [ ] and my general health greatly improved: Susan not so much:
I hope you have had a profitable meeting – I could but feel a deep interest in its results – we shall endeavor to get home by Commencement
Very Respy….James D. Wood
I will thank you to ask Mr. Dunlap to make the Collection of the Student forms & have his accts made out for me by the time I get home JDW

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Commissioners’ sale of the Warm Springs, a celebrated watering place in Bath County, Virginia. [Lexington, Virginia, Virginia gazette print] 1871. Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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If the estimation in which the White Sulphur water is held, in the United States, be any evidence of its merit, it needs no other eulogy; for it is well known that its fame has spread to every portion of the nation. It is indeed a noble fountain, destined, we hope and trust, to be a blessing to countless generations. William Burke

This is the image of White Sulphur Springs chosen for the book written by John J. Moorman, the resident physician. {1}

William Burke on the White Sulphur Springs.

Edward Beyer’s print of White Sulphur Springs published in 1857. {2}

The White Sulphur Springs, now the Greenbrier resort, is in Greenbrier County in what is now West Virginia. Thirty-five miles from Hot Springs, it had accommodations for 500 people with the normal number of accompanying servants and horses. Informed that a greater number had been lodged, Dr. Burke wrote in The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, “More than six hundred are said to have been taken in, but when the guest has to be crammed into a room with some half dozen others, it is not so much accommodation as making shift.” In the dozen years prior to the printing of Dr. Burke’s book there were extensive improvements though “such a glaring want of design in the arrangement of the buildings, that it is painful to a man of taste to observe how nature has been marred by the want of art.” Dr. Burke described the chaos at mealtime caused by servants seizing the best of the food for their private employers or for guests who had bribed the establishment’s servants. He suggested the banning of private servants from the dining hall and the implementation of a system to make it more difficult to bribe the White Sulphur Springs servants.

Dr. Burke claimed that Moorman was saying that water without the gas was even better than the original from the spring and begged to differ: “We can understand how half a loaf is better than no bread; but it will take better logic than that exhibited by Dr. M. to convince us that half a loaf is better than a whole loaf.” {Burke, 148}

Dr. Burke devoted a remarkable 80 percent of his chapter on the White Sulphur Springs and more than 10 percent of his entire book to his disagreement with the resident doctor, J. J. Moorman, concerning the effectiveness of White Sulphur Springs water that no longer contained “sulphuretted hydrogen gas.” Dr. Moorman and his supporters testified in lengthy quotes that water transported for the use of the general public and lacking the gas was as beneficial to the user as the water with the gas that was consumed at the springs. With increasing fervor and the creative use of a satirical drama, Dr. Burke rebuked Dr. Moorman’s theory which Burke believed stemmed from a desire for pecuniary gain and resulted in the sale of “putrid” and “stale” water.

Dr. Burke eventually wrote, “We shall make no further quotations from Dr. M[oorman]. His facts are without foundation in truth; his arguments puerile and shallow; his theories untenable; his absurdities ridiculous; his motives palpable and culpable; and his efforts to bolster up a selfish practice, a gross imposition.” {Burke, 172}

Dr. Burke did have good things to say about the springs. He wrote that the water’s fame had spread to the entire nation and called the fountain noble, “destined, we hope and trust, to be a blessing to countless generations.” Dr. Burke quoted an article in the Southern Literary Messenger [April 1838, p. 261] that said the spring was covered by a tasteful, domed pavilion, adorned with a statue of the patron saint of healing, Hygeia. Surrounded by shade trees, the pavilion was a gathering place for both the sick and indisposed as well as the healthy and vigorous.

Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at White Sulphur Springs.

Dr. Burke quoted John Bell’s book, On Baths and Mineral Waters, which delineated the various illnesses that people hoped would be cured by a visit to the White Sulphur Springs. “The White Sulphur Springs have been much resorted to by invalids suffering from dyspepsia, chronic hepatitis, the slow fever following remittent, bilious, or ill-cured intermittent fevers; chronic rheumatism, cutaneous diseases, uterine derangements, such as obstructed menstruation and fluor albus.” Burke added that the water would be useful in most cases of visceral illness and certain nephritic diseases, but that it could be harmful to those predisposed to pulmonary disorders or with actual respiratory disease.Burke’s Recommendations for Using the Waters at White Sulphur Springs.

Professor William Rogers from the University of Virginia did an analysis of the waters which indicated that the White Sulphur Springs did not have the gaseous or saline quantities of many spring waters, but Burke insisted that did not make the water inferior in curative assets as, “There may be too much of a good thing in mineral waters.”

Robert T. Hubard Farm Journal, September 11, 1839.

Robert Thruston Hubard (1808-1871) was a tobacco farmer, lawyer, and member of the Virginia House of Delegates. This was at least his second visit to the springs as he wrote a letter to his wife from White Sulphur in 1838. His journal entry dated September 11, 1839, illustrates his passionate disdain for the milieu of the Virginia springs.

Robert T. Hubard Farm Journal, 1834-1846, Accession #8039-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Documents from the Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia:

• Letter from John McLaughlin, 1814: McLaughlin mentions four different springs and writes his wife that his colic is clear, but his knees still hurt.
• Letter from Virginia Randolph Trist, 1825: Trist writes her sister that Nicholas (probably her husband) was at White Sulphur and mentions seeing her grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, enjoying the evening air at Monticello.
• Letter from R. T. Hubard to Susan Hubard, August 19, 1838: Hubard laments the separation from his family, and he fears he will never be “a sound, healthy man” but does live for another 33 years.
• Woodblock print by Henry Howe, 1845: This print was used for the book, Historical Collections of Virginia.
• Daguerreotype by James Ball, 1845: This is probably one of the first daguerreotypes by the African-American photographer who learned his trade in White Sulphur Springs.
• Letter from J. S. Martin, 1847: Martin writes his wife that he believes his life is at stake and that he is willing to sacrifice all his worldly effects for health.
• White Sulphur Springs, 1854: This bird’s eye view illustrates one of Dr. J. J. Moorman’s books.
• White Sulphur Springs Company certificate, February 23, 1858: The certificate shows that Robert W. Carter owned 5 shares at $5000 each of Warm Sulphur Springs Company.
• Indenture between White Sulphur Springs Company and Robert W. Carter, 1858: Carter pays $2500 for cottage privileges, giving him and his heirs the right to use the fourth cottage in Baltimore row forever.
• White Sulphur Springs Company Bond, 1859: The $500 bond was to be paid on January 1, 1862, but Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861.
• Letter from Elizabeth Noel, 1860: Noel writes her daughter about the huge amounts of food prepared everyday (500 pies, 22 sheep, 300 chickens), describes clothing (the belle of the place doesn’t wear hoops) and is not feeling well.
• Statement of Receipts and Expenditures, 1860: This statement of receipts and expenditures shows that the expenses appear to be $60,000 more than income for the year.
• Letter from G. W. Lewis, 1867: Lewis writes a fellow executor of Robert W. Carter’s estate about the insolvent condition of the White Sulphur Springs Company and the resultant liability on the estate.
• Photograph of Robert E. Lee with eight former Confederate generals …, 1869: This photo is of Lee and 12 other illustrious men.
• Statement from a director of the White Sulphur Springs Company, 1873: Morton describes the sad state of the financial affairs of the White Sulphur Springs Company and seeks aid from a federal court.
• For Rent! The White Sulphur Springs! 1874: The article solicits bids for renting the springs for the summer season.
• Commissioner’s Notice. Charles S. Gay … vs. The White Sulphur Springs Company …, [1874]: The notice concerns liens on the property of the White Sulphur Springs.
• Petition for permission to lease White Sulphur Springs: The creditors seek to rent rather than sell the springs, fearing a total loss if the property is sold.
• Gay … vs. The White Sulphur Springs Co …, 1875: The White Sulphur Springs Company must transfer its right to build a hotel at the C & O Railroad depot.

Additional Information:

• National Register of Historic Places Nomination Form: This detailed form for the White Sulphur Springs is dated May 9, 1974. It includes the history and significance of the springs, descriptions of buildings, maps, a bibliography, and a photograph.
• National Register of Historic Places: The National Register has a brief summary of places in Greenbrier County, West Virginia.
• “White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia” by John W. Lund: This article in the Geo-Heat Center Bulletin of May 1996 gives the history of White Sulphur Springs up through the mid 1990s. Early photographs and images are included.
• Library of Congress American Memory: Search for White Sulphur Springs, and see Detroit Publishing Company photographs taken from 1880 to 1920, photos from the Historic American Buildings Survey, letters written from the springs during the Civil War, and a broadside in which Jeremiah Morton states that the advertisement to rent the springs in 1974 was publicized about as well, “as if it had been stuck up against a tree in the midst of the forest.”
• History of the Greenbrier: The current owner’s official site gives a history of the resort.
• Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Online Catalog: Search for White Sulphur Springs, and see dozens of images of White Sulphur Springs, many photographed by Richard Cheek in 1974 and many from 1900-1920.

Image Credits:

• {1} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs, Richmond, Virginia: J.W. Randolph, 1857: facing page 25. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {2} Merritt T. Cooke Memorial Virginia Print Collection, 1857-1907, Accession #9408, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
• {3} John J. Moorman, The Virginia Springs of the South and West, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1859: facing title page. Historical Collections & Services, Claude Moore Health Sciences Library, University of Virginia.
• {4} Robert T. Hubard Farm Journal, 1834-1846, Accession #8039-c, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

Source:

• William Burke, The Mineral Springs of Western Virginia, New York: Wiley and Putnam, 1846.

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McLaughlin-Redd papers, 177?-1867, Accession #38-470, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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Hubard Family Letters, 1838-74, Accession #7966, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

 

When I get back I can tell whether it will be wanting or not & if not then I can send it to [unclear]. It continues very dry here and the dust is so annoying that there is no pleasure in riding out. I am again boarding (with about 100 others) at mr. Martin’s Hotel, where I am lodged with tolerable comfort. The crowd at the White Sulphur is as great as ever. I have not seen or heard of Mrs Perkins & her family. But few of my acquaintances are here. Mr. Randolph Harrison Sr is here and I imagine in pursuit of a wife. The President & his sons, Mr Poinsett, Mr Rives, Mr Roane, Misses Stanard, Leigh, Johnson and many other eminent men are on the ground. Blair Bolling and Wyndham Roberson are also here, tho’ without their families. Miss E. Cabell is still here, and I understand her cousin Mrs Shipherd of Florida is also, tho I have not met with her. Don’t be uneasy she and I will not run off. Her father Col Gamble & Mrs Gamble are present and I spoke to them yesterday at the spring. The place is as dull and uninteresting to me as possible. Next week or rather this week I think I must try & go to the ball room one night as I have not been yet & wish to see some of the amusements of the single people and have something to tell you upon my return. Direct as heretofore to the White Sulphur. Give my love to Edmund, sister Mary & Philip and also to cousin Patsy, who I am glad to learn is so hearty and so fat. Give my love and a kiss to James and William and accept for yourself the love and blessing of your ever devoted husband
R. T. Hubard

Notes:

• {1} A Guide to the Hubard Family Papers 1749-1950, Accession Number 8039, 8039-a, 8039-b. A Collection in Special Collections, University of Virginia Library. Accessed June 23, 2010.

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Henry Howe, Woodblock Print of Views of White Sulphur Springs [manuscript] 1845, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

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James Ball. Daguerreotype of the Greenbrier Resort, 1845, Accession #11531, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.

This is probably one of the first daguerreotypes made by James Ball who was an African-American photographer. He learned his trade in White Sulphur Springs. He operated studios in Cincinnati; Pittsburgh; Richmond; Minneapolis; Helena, Montana; and Seattle.

For more on James Ball see the African American Registry.

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Thomas Jefferson in his Notes on the State of Virginia, originally written in 1781 and 1782, stated, “There are several Medicinal springs, some of which are indubitably efficacious, while others seem to owe their reputation as much to fancy, and change of air and regimen, as to their real virtues. None of them having undergone a chemical analysis in skilful hands, nor been so far the subject of observations as to have produced a reduction into classes of the disorders which they relieve, it is in my power to give little more than an enumeration of them.” {Jefferson, Notes} In 1825 he wrote Fanny Wright “We have taken too little pains to ascertain the properties of our different mineral waters, the cases in which they are respectively remedial, the proper process in their use, and other circumstances necessary to give us their full value. {Jefferson, Writings, 343-44}

Not surprisingly Jefferson was ahead of his time. In 1835, ten years after Jefferson’s letter to Wright, William Barton Rogers (1804-82) was appointed the geologist for the Commonwealth of Virginia. He headed the state’s geological survey from 1835 to 1841 and also was the Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of Virginia where his brother, Robert Empie Rogers, taught Chemistry and Materia Medica. Following are the results of his analyses of the springs of Virginia. He analyzed ten of the eleven springs Dr. Burke wrote about in his 1846 volume, missing only Fauquier White Sulphur Springs, and including a number that Burke omitted.

For more information about Rogers who was also the founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, see William Barton Rogers. See the Springs in a google map with recent photos.

William Barton Rogers, A Reprint of Annual Reports and Other Papers, on the Geology of the Virginias, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1884. Photocopy. Charles L. Brown Science & Engineering Library, University of Virginia Library. (Also available on Google Books)

Sources:

• Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, Query VI,  Accessed July 29, 2009.
• Thomas Jefferson, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, Volume X, 1816-1826, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1899. (Also available on Google Books)

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