An entity in trouble to turn it around because that is what i spent the first 20 years of my career doing, and i thought the country needed the same thing. Lynchburg was named for its founder, john lynch. It had a rich manufacturing history as well as civil war ties to the nearby sandusky and the nearby Appomattox Courthouse. This painting tells a unique story. There is damage to the painting and the tradition passed to the family is that this painting was fanned allies by Union Soldiers during their occupation at the civil war battle. Writtenind some accounts of the vandalism that took place during the battle. For the next 90 minutes, we will feature the citys local history beginning with poplar history beginning with Poplar Forest, Thomas Jeffersons private retreat. What you see behind me is jeffersons most infamous, perfect work of architecture. Poplar forest. That was his villa retreat that he started building when president. It is not known very much because jefferson kept it a secret. It was lived in privately until 1979. Has been a house museum, a private nonprofit project and we have been doing restoration for the last 30 years. Slow processand because we try to do the most authentic process just like jefferson first did it. We are in the home stretch of restoring the main house. We have craftsmen who are making the moldings by hand and we are following jeffersons exact historical sequence, not just the same material and techniques but the same historical timeline. Jefferson started living here it took him 14 years to finish it because it was his most perfect work for his own exploration. Yet he never invited anyone to come see his most perfect work which tells us it was all for himself. This is the missing link of architecture. It is a very important work we can call jeffersonian. It is a melting pot of all the ideas he collected throughout his lifetime and put together in his one personal work. This was a property that owned. Ons wifes father jefferson and his wife inherit this in 1773. It for a thinks about and then eventually when he is still in the white house, he starts constructing Poplar Forest. Which was fortunate because he had to send detailed letters to the workers in the worker sent letters back to the white house which makes this one of the most documented early american houses. Jeffersons letters are very detailed and explicit. Leaves thefferson white house and started using Poplar Forest that year. Shell, butfinished that doesnt matter because it is a peaceful and quiet place. Andomes here between 1809 1823 up to four times per year, usually bringing one servant. Theother slaves here on plantation helped when he was in residence. It is mostly jefferson trying to be by himself. If you wanted to imagine the historic sounds of Poplar Forest, it is the sound of his mind when he is reading, writing, and thinking. Eventually he brings two teenage granddaughters with him and this toin 1823 he gives his grandson who lives here for five years. The house went through two other families had was finally rescued in 1983 to be a museum. Working plantation, one of five that jefferson owned. It was originally 5000 acres but it his lifetime goes down to 1000. Eventually jefferson tried to do wheat as a cash crop, but the challenge here in the piedmont is you have to get your cash crop down to richmond where you can put them on a ship. Jefferson like this because it was so remote. Your a challenge to get autonomy down to richmond. Typically when jefferson is not here, the house is locked up. When he comes he would stay anywhere between two weeks and two months, typically by himself. When he is in richmond as andrnor, and philadelphia new york with the government he is always looking to use a retreat. He needed to be by himself to do his greatest thinking. Leavingd say, he is Public Office after 40 years, retiring to monticello, why does he need a retreat . Monticello had become like a hotel and everyone either who knew jefferson or didnt would drop in and want to be entertained. At monticello, jefferson is almost a prisoner. He really needs Poplar Forest to be by himself to recharge his. Ntellectual batteries it is in the peace and quite of Poplar Forest that he does his last great project at the university of virginia. When that is under construction he is at Poplar Forest sometimes. Of manya complication things that jefferson loved, is most fundamental being the octagon. He loves the shape of an octagon. Forest becomes the first Octagon House in america. Within that octagon it is a geometrical puzzle. In the middle of this house is a 20 foot to and around that to octagonal toggle rooms. Modern marvel of architecture because it was used for one person who used it occasionally. It did not have to operate as a typical house. Five years after he started living here he asked for a wing of what he called Service Rooms. Kitchen, laundry, smokehouse. These ideas of wings attached to the house he had seen in a book from the renaissance, but he makes it his own device by inventing a hidden room that gives you a flat deck on top. Where almost sure he wanted balanced wings but only the 100foot wing on the east was built. It was the same size of the wings he had just added to the white house which also had Service Rooms and a flat deck he could sit on. These wings are very jeffersonian in concept. They were important for him to engage nature while his enslaved servants used the bottom. Jefferson hired his same white workers, the carpenter, the bricklayer who later went to the university of virginia. Once the shell was finished, all of the finished work at Poplar Forest was done by John Hemmings, and enslaved craftsmen from monticello who by that time is the master craftsman at monticello. John hemmings came with his nephews to do the finished woodwork in the house. Onlyhemmings is not literate, but he and jefferson right letters back and forth. Letters back and forth. Jefferson is at monticello and hemmings at Poplar Forest. What is interesting is, they both speak in this architectural language that not too many people would have known about. Jefferson says of his work, he has never seen better work from anyone. We are in they final stages of completing the interior of the house, making moldings by hand. Right now we are replastering the ceilings in the house. We did those back in 2003 but had to redo them for a number of reasons. So today you will see a traditional process of lime and plaster being put on the fromngs, using glass england, plaster mixed with goat plasterers english who now live in the United States. This is a process that no one has seen for probably 100 years and even parts of it not since jeffersons time. This is a rare opportunity to see this authentic process. What we are doing now is the scratch coat. This material is very hairy with goat hair. It is very sticky. So were trying to get this coat on. Thickness. 3 8 we will leave it for about four weeks to harden and then we will come back and do the next bit. Here on the wall exhibit we can describe the same process we are doing on the ceiling. Split top you see the left. This is the scratch coat that we are putting on the ceilings now. The scratch coat goes through and hangs on. The scratch coat is named for an obvious reason. Uses a piece of wood and scratches this when it is wet. Scratches isf the for the second coat to bond to this layer. Of lime plastering been done in this country since 1900 it is all about the timing. This has to bond to that while it is still wet. That is the art of having somebody who knows lime plastering. The amount of time that it takes to do this on to this varies with temperature and humidity. There is an art to the timing. Irst coat and second coat lastly the white coat is a thin coat of lime without so much sand which is a smooth, marblelike feeling. This is the material that jefferson was coloring on the wall. The reason you use pigmented lime wash as you can put color on a fresh plaster wall immediately because the lime wash is the same material as the plaster. Oil paint ono put you might have to wait a year or two because it takes a long time to dry out. Here we can see one ceiling that is already finished with the scratches. This will be curing for about a month. It will then receive the second coat. What we are doing in the before and after the plaster process, is we are putting up all of the wood trim in the house that John Hemmings had made originally. What is significant about what this is, this has been done by hand, not machine. All of these classical roman moldings that were important to jefferson have been made with a hand plane. In this case, this is antique poplar wood. Jefferson is surrounded by the Poplar Forest. The poplar tree forest which gave the house its name. It was a distinctive part of nature that jefferson loved. ,ere using jeffersonera wood using the same techniques. This will all be painted. We have the arches raised, the rail, the bases down here. In the top, in this entry passage, we have the beginning entabland tablature atures in the house. Entablatures, above the column in the greek or roman architecture. We are in the lower level of the house. In this restoration process we are using the bench to create moldings. Most of them are out of poplar wood. The tools we are using for modernday woodwork we are going back in time and using different oldstyle tools. We have a newer tool but it is made in the old way. It is a would body wooden grooves toith the hold it in place. This one actually has the doors that were in the house. We have used this for some of the window panel jams. Tools to makeher these pieces like this where you have this is part of the ,ornice of the and tablature and you have a lot of concave or convex areas. Flat plane, you have to use one that has either i hope you can see this. It is the wood body. You have the rounded bottom to create some of the areas. The other type would be this type where you can create around. T on the material maybe a fewdo is passes with this plane as a demonstration. Do is usee trying to these tools. , people cantion come in and see us in the process. Works. Show you how that that process is just a few swipes. You can see you are starting to run in the path of the plane across. If you continue, you will have a profile. Workmenory here of the who created Poplar Forest in the original time period. John hemming is working for Thomas Jefferson. His nephews eston and madison would be working with him. Jefferson purchases a full set tools the tools are given to him through jeffersons will. He is also given his freedom and that time. He can make a living as a free man that way. Were happy that were able to history, story of the along with the process of the restoration. We are here on historic pierce street in front of the home of robert johnson. We spoke to his grandson about dr. Johnson is sick role in the desegregation of tennis dr. Johnsons role in the desegregation of tennis. This is the location where it happened. 15th and pierce street. Dr. Johnson set up a Junior Development program in 1951 to train the best and brightest kids, mostly africanamericans in the sport of tennis. He would mentor them, work on strategy and tactics and had his kids stay for the summer. It is usually about a dozen kids per year. Line inwhere the color the sport of tennis was broken when his first Junior DevelopmentProgram Player played in the u. S. Nationals. That is what started this program. Alcia, arthur ash came. The court behind you is where it all took place. This is where they spent hours and hours of time honing their considerable skills and working on their dispositions and talent. Dr. Johnson was my grandfather. He was a Lincoln University graduate. A football player. A studentathlete. He ended up going to medical school in nashville, tennessee. He did his residency in texas. He was recruited in the mid1 930s to come to lynchburg. There were a handful of africanamerican physicians getting ready to retire, and they were looking for comparable and qualified physicians to replace them. Move tos approached to lynchburg and he said, ill do it. He established his practice and worked diligently between the mid1930s until 1971. First the africanamerican to receive villages at the lynchburg general hospital. He broke barriers not just in tennis, but the field of medicine as well. When he moved here, it was not easy. It was challenging to move from his family to set up shop in lynchburg and deal with the changes going on at the time. He was one of these movers and shakers. He took on things on his problems but challenges. He set up his practice and was looking for ways to keep is outside the office and keep active. Started playing tennis which he learned in high school and played in college. He really fell in love with the sport. I believe the court went in in the late 1930s or 1940s. He had the court installed and started slowly by working on his game and by bringing the sport to many others in the community as well as around the country. He was a civil rights leader. Someone who was looking at the social status of the way things were. He started very small. He started trying to get kids in the National Interscholastic tournament in charlottesville. Looked to a broader stage and said, what is going on in the world of tennis, the professional sport . The American Tennis Association , once that developed enough talent, he decided to launch a Junior Development program here which would be a stepping stone for players to move up into the ata and the world tour. The program was developed as a model based on what dr. J had done with gibson. In north winters carolina with dr. Eaton and would train in the summer with my grandfather. That was intense training and intense competition on a daily basis. Every weekend, there were tournaments. There wasnt a week that she was here in the summer that she wasnt playing a tournament on the weekend and training with some of the best male players that the Africanamerican Community had to offer. For 1951the stage where he started bringing kids for 20 years. Stay in his house. With otherwould stay relatives of dr. Johnson, as well as coworkers, nurses, and people in his medical practice. They were mostly africanamericans, but there were some kids who trained that werent africanamerican and benefited from his program and goodwill. I spent several summers here shortly before my grandfather passed away, i was part of the traveling team. He was a largerthanlife individual who impacted so many peoples lives. When he was locked into the room or would go to a tournament, it was like the red carpet would be rolled out. He had managed to deliver the first two africanamericans who broke the color barrier in the sport. Once that happened and once people realized that those players had grown up here, and had flourished here and beyond lynchburg, this created this cavalcade of interest. Managedmy grandfather to be a student of the tennis game and transformed that that forinto a program decades provided players with an opportunity to integrate the sport. Because you were here for a couple of summers or multiple summers, he stayed in touch with. Oth of them lovely he sent a telegram to my grandfather after she won wimbledon saying, this victory is as much yours as it is mine. Confidence and willingness to support me and sponsor me i never would have made it to the world stage. Johnsonlished the foundation in 2015. We are in the middle of a restoration. What you can see behind me was restored last year. In 2018, we will try to focus on and get and the shed both of them are stored as well in addition to the garden which was a prominent area in the house back in the day. We will focus on the rest of the property and make sure it is installed in its previous condition. We will have a museum to capture a lot of the history. There will be memorabilia, photographs, videos of historic moments, players who played here. We will share all of that with the general public locally and internationally. The Immediate Community is very proud of what took place here. This is a Historic District in lynchburg. Proud of whaty happened here. For lightning to strike twice here on this property is almost impossible to imagine. Pride and lot of local community support. My grandfather passed away in 1971, and the house was left to one of the nurses in his medical practice. Untils here from 1971 2000 and the house came back to the family. During that time that she was here in that gap the family coming back to the property and today, there was a lot of downturn in the overall property. Now we are focused on addressing that. We started with the court because it was a launching pad for what took place here, but more importantly the home and the shed off the court we will address those this year. And hopefully we will be up and running by the end of 2018. Cspan is in lynchburg, virginia. Next we go outside the city to Appomattox Courthouse. We will learn about appomattox lesser known stories. In standing in one of front of one of the most famous courthouses in the United States were nothing of significance happened. Appomattox courthouse. Courthouse is one word is a building like the one behind me. Within view of Appomattox Court house, two words. Where generally surrendered to general grant bringing about an end of the general civil war. Today we would like to talk about why the courthouse is so famous. The town was not more than 130 or 140 people in 1865. It is an unlikely place for two meet. Military forces to 95,000 soldiers within a six mile radius. It is not wear either army wanted to be but it is where they ended up. As fate would have it, his army was practically surrounded by general grant. Generally y, general lee would meet general grant at the mclean house. They would meet in the parlor of that h