Our theme this year is "Life's a basket of cherries with the Jackson Brigade." The atmosphere of this Reunion will be a little less formal than in years past, which we hope will give folks more opportunity to visit with one another and to further explore Jackson's Mill at their own pace.

Please, if you have family photos or family data to share, bring then along to display. We are also looking for items for a silent auction to defray some of the Reunion expenses. If you have any items to donate for the auction, please bring them.

Schedule for Saturday August 12, 2006

• At 9:30 a.m., we'll gather at the Jubilee Pavilion in Jackson's Mill for registration and mingling. Map of Jackson's Mill showing Jubilee Pavilion.

• About 10:30 a.m., we'll hold our business meeting followed by a memorial service for family members who have passed away since the last Reunion in 2004.

• At noon, we'll enjoy a catered picnic lunch (hamburgers, hotdogs, pork-n-beans, coleslaw, watermelon, whole fruit and drinks). (Reservations are required for the picnic lunch. Please use this form. Reservation deadline is July 21, but please to try to register early. After lunch, Susan Church (bio on Susan Church) will give a living history presentation on Mary Anna Morrison Jackson (wife of "Stonewall" Jackson). A message from Susan Church. The afternoon will be available for visiting and/or touring the Jackson's Mill grounds.

• At 6 p.m., we'll have a dedication of the new fencing around the Jackson Plots in Clarksburg's historic Jackson Cemetery on Pike Street, Clarksburg, WV.

• At 7 p. m., the Harrison County Historical Society will host a reception at the Stealey Vance House on Main Street in Clarksburg following the fencing dedication service.

Schedule for Sunday August 13, 2006

• Guided area motorcade tour by Nancy Jackson. Individuals should contact Nancy if interested in the tour.

  The tour on Sunday will include a brief tour of Clarksburg emphasizing pertinent Jackson history. Then we will travel to Buckhannon stopping on the way in Weston for a short time for more Jackson history. In Buckhannon we will go to the Pringle Tree where John and Elizabeth Jackson first settled in the area, visit a few sites in the town of Buckhannon and then be guided to the Henry Jackson Cemetery on top of a mountain where Henry's farm place was located. You will be able to view the unique coffin like stones covering the graves of Henry and his second wife. These stones were pulled by oxen to the top of the mountain. I have never seen stones like these. The site of Henry's farmplace takes your breath away. We will travel by motorcade taking as few of cars as necessary.

  Nancy's planned Itinerary (pdf). (in html)

Here are directions to Jackson's Mill.

You can read about the Jackson's Mill historic area which is now the WVU Jackson's Mill State 4-H Conference Center at http://www.wvu.edu/~exten/depts/jmill/jmh_area.htm.

Here's a helpful website with more area information: http://www.superpages.com/cities/cp/wv/clarksburg/.

"... Those attending the reunion might be interested in: First, a recent reading of the Oxford University Press' book, West Virginia: A Guide to the Mountain State, which was published in 1941, disclosed that U.S. 19 was known as the Stonewall Jackson Highway in 1941. It might still be. Secondly, the Conrad cabin on the mill grounds was sitting along U.S. 19 in Roanoke in 1941 but was moved to the mill grounds once it became known that the waters of the lake at the Stonewall Jackson State Park would cover the ground upon which the cabin stood.* Thirdly, Dr. Roy Cook, whose mother was, I believe, a Conrad, was, as you know, one of Stonewall's earliest biographers, and he was born in Roanoke in 1886 and moved to Weston in 1898 according to a recent biographical sketch by Christy Venham in the recently published West Virgnina Humanities Council's West Virginia Encyclopedia. Fourthly, the Alexander Scott Withers, who Cook pointed out in his book Lewis County in the Civil War (1861-1865) published in 1924 was Stonewall's teacher in 1839 in a school in Lewis County's first court house building, is buried in a graveyard along U.S. 19 in Weston at the southern end of Main Street.

"Those attending the reunion might want to take a little drive along the Stonewall Jackson Highway to Weston while they are in Lewis County and visit the graveyard and the court house grounds. As they travel south towards the graveyard they'll pass the beautiful Citizen's Bank building which sits at the corner of Main and Second Streets, on the site where there once stood the historic Bailey House which was owned by Major Minter Bailey, who along with Withers, accordng to Cook, secured in 1841 Stonewall's appointment as a constable. Persons who make the trek, however, should be aware that a number of Weston's north-south streets were fairly recently, and might still be, one-way streets. It is not known what the city's surveyor at the time of its founding in 1818, Colonel Edward Jackson, grandfather of 'Stonewall' Jackson, would have thought of such an arrangement.

"With hope that the reunion is a success and with the desire that everyone has a safe trip to and from it,

"*I was living in Roanoke in 1942 in a house which was razed in ca. 1987 to make way for the lake. The house was on a piece of high ground overlooking the Stonewall Jackson Highway and was accessed from the highway by a short dirt road. On trips from that house to Weston Dad first brought to my attention the Civil War by mentioning as we crossed through the covered bridge over the West Fork of the Monongahela at Ben Dale that President William McKinley guarded that bridge during the Civil War. The bridge was torn down sometime in the 1950's, it is believed."