Local History

The land that the monastery sits on has long been the site of the crossroads of history, which is largely unknown to the wider American public outside of central Virginia.

After the 1781 Battle of Guilford Courthouse, British General Charles Lord Cornwallis marched his army to Virginia but was trailed and taunted by a Continental force under the Marquis de Lafayette. On the way to shield the vital logistical center of Fredericksburg from the British, Lafayette brought his command along Brock and Catharpin Roads (where our monastery is located), on the south and the eastern portion of this tract in Spotsylvania County. It was this maneuvering of Lafayette and Cornwallis that ultimately led to Yorktown, where the British famously surrendered.

But 83 years later, war again roared through this Virginia landscape.

On the night of May 7, 1864, Union Generals Grant and Meade rode south along Spotsylvania’s Brock Road, skirting the 137-acre tract and stopping briefly at the one-and-a-half story inn known as Todd’s Tavern. A few days later, on May 14, Confederate Gen. Thomas Rosser’s cavalry brigade spent the night at the tavern. The following day, Rosser marched east on the Catharpin Road and engaged the 2nd Ohio Cavalry and 23rd Regiment, U.S. Colored Troops. It is there that Union Gen. Philip Sheridan and Confederate Gen. Fitzhugh “Fitz” Lee waged one of the most intense and important cavalry battles of the Overland Campaign. Lee would hold Todd's Tavern until out flanked while repositioning his force, but this battle would ultimately allow the Confederate forces to get to Spotsylvania Courthouse before the Union in 1864. 

One soldier recalled about the fighting at Todd’s Tavern: “For half an hour there was one of the hottest fights between the opposing brigades of dismounted cavalry that occurred during the war. Every tree, every sapling was marked by flying lead, and a steady stream of wounded were going back.”



Further information about the Battle of Todd's Tavern can be seen in the following videos:






In addition to the land around the monastery being the sight of the two largest wars to occur in the United States, this area has left its mark in history as it was the first commercial gold mine within the United States. Gold in place was first discovered in 1806 at the Whitehall mine, 1.5 miles northwest of Shady Grove Church in western Spotsylvania County (6 miles away from the monastery). The mine was worked be- tween the years 1848 and 1884; records of the Philadelphia mint report a yield of $1,800,000 in gold during the period 1848-1881. Silliman (1837, p. 101) states that $10,000 in gold was found within an area of 20 square feet at the mine in just a few days. Another report states that at a depth of 28 feet, in a space of 3 square feet, $160,000 of pure gold was obtained (Hotchkiss, 1881, p. 182).

Over 300 gold mines were developed in Virginia. Total production since 1804 was approximately 100,000 troy ounces. Peak production was 6,259 troy ounces in 1848, the year gold was discovered in California. Mining of lode deposits dropped off after discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California in 1848. Some production resumed in Virginia after the Civil War, but only in small-scale operations. Gold was last produced in the state of Virginia in 1947 as a by-product of lead and zinc.

Placer (alluvial) gold was scarce by 1830, so mining shifted to digging quartz/gold veins in bedrock. The lode or "hard rock" mines were excavated in the saprolite in the Piedmont, which was relatively easy to excavate with pick and shovel.

At depth, the bedrock which had not decomposed into saprolite had to be blasted with black powder; dynamite did not become available after the Civil War. The technical challenges and financial costs of pumping water from deep shafts restricted most mining to within 300 feet of the surface. If there is gold ore still cost-effective to mine in Virginia, shafts deeper than 300 feet or large open pit mines will be required to extract it.

There is still gold in Virginia. By one geological estimate, there may be as much as 378,000 troy ounces remaining in lode deposits and 274,000 remaining in placer deposits. However, that gold is not concentrated sufficiently enough in any one location to justify the cost of opening a mine and processing the ore.