Looking for a legend

It’s not exactly like Valentine Cox was missing in action, or even in death. But if the location of his tombstone was common knowledge to a lot of longtime Bedford County residents, it was news to Jane Pitts.

“I lived in Lake Vista at the time, about eight years ago,” recalled Pitts, regent of the John Lynch Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, “and one day I happened to notice this red, white and blue balloon that had come to earth just off the road I was on.

“When I looked closer, I realized it was right next to this tombstone I had never noticed before.”

As it turned out, red, white and blue were appropriate colors. Pitts’ discovery may not have been revolutionary, but it did turn out to be Revolutionary.

For while there is no evidence to suggest that Valentine Cox ever took up arms against British redcoats, records that Pitts and others were able to find indicate that he supplied grain and other vital supplies to the American cause.

“That makes him a patriot,” Pitts said.

Cox also did business with Lynchburg founder John Lynch (including investing in Lynch’s ferry), knew Thomas Jefferson and owned several large tracts of land in Amherst County as well as Bedford.

“He was quite the entrepreneur,” said Pitts.

Yet his tombstone is small, rather drab, and adorned only with the initials “VC.”

“It sort of stuck in my head,” Pitts said, “but I didn’t do anything about it until I joined the DAR. Our chapter got a $6,000 grant from the state DAR to research this cemetery, and we started tracking down and getting in touch with some of Valentine Cox’s descendants.”

That genealogical trail stretched to as far as New Mexico. One of Cox’s “grandchildren times six,” Sharon Steo of Stanardsville, eventually came down to visit the grave, which Pitts said “was probably his first visitor in 100 years.”

The real surprise came a bit later, when Pitts asked Chris Tharpe of Tharpe Funeral Home — an expert in finding “lost” graves — to examine the site.

“We knew there were a few other stones there,” Pitts said, “but Chris brought in some equipment, drew a map, and said he had found something like 52. We really don’t know who any of them are, but we’re working on it.”

At the time Pitts stumbled across the site, it had, in her words, “returned to nature. The Cox stone was the only one that was really sticking up out of the vegetation.”

The other graves are probably for family members, Pitts said, or possibly slaves and servants.

“We were fortunate enough to find an old document where Cox’s slaves and property were deeded to his oldest son,” Pitts said, “and all of the slaves were named. We’re trying to track down their descendants. Some African-Americans fought in the Revolutionary War, and we’d like to be able to identify and honor them if that’s the case here.”

Eventual plans are to build a wall around the spot (the DAR would like to keep its exact location under wraps for now) and hold a grave-marking ceremony in May 2010.

“The owner of the property, Kent Burns, knew the cemetery was here, but not the extent of it,” Hicks said. “He had owned it since he was very young.”

Among other things, the cleanup crew found discarded cans and an old, empty wallet.

And when work began last year, Pitts said, “everybody seemed to be an expert. Cars would stop and people would tell us it was a slave cemetery, a Confederate cemetery.”

Actually, Valentine Cox died in 1813, and has been hiding in plain sight ever since.

“It was nice to be able to sort of bring him back,” Pitts said.

Coming up in Darrell’s Sunday column: A closer look at local chapters of the Daughters of the American Revolution (they’re livelier than you may think.)