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1. SUBJECT:

Timberville, Virginia.

2. LOCATION:

17 miles North of Harrisonburg, Virginia. From Harrisonburg, take Route #11 go ten miles North to intersection with Route #259; thence Northwest (left) seven miles. Town on Route #259.

3. DATE:

Not definitely known; supposed to have been between 1750 and 1800.

4. OWNERS:
5. DESCRIPTION:
6. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE:

Timberville, Virginia, is one of the thriving small towns in the Shenandoah Valley, having a population within the corporate limits and including those nearby, of between four and five hundred.

The town is situated on the West Bank of the North Branch of the Shenandoah River. For a number of years the town was known as Timberville, but not until 1884 when it was incorporated, did it become officially known by that name.

Just when the first settler built his cabin there, or when it became a village, is not at all definitely known. According to a Timberville school news item appearing in the Daily News Record of Harrisonburg, March 4^th, 1938, it is said; quote "Between 1750 and 1800, a log house was constructed on the western bank of the Shenandoah river. This building marked the beginning of Timberville, and became the home of Daniel Zigler’s father in 1814….The first school room was about fifteen by eighteen feet in size and light was admitted through small windows. The ceiling was so low that the tallest boy could scarcely stand or walk erect. In 1817, a new building was erected upon a lot donated by William Thompson, size twenty by twenty-five feet and containing one room. The First schoolmaster in this building was William Thompson, the donor of the lot…."

In Wayland’s A History of Rockingham County, we find the following, namely: "Statements regarding the beginning of Timberville are somewhat complicated. In 1814 when John Zigler located there, a log house, then old, stood on the West Bank of the river. In the year mentioned Mr. Zigler opened a tannery, which, at his death in 1856, was said to be the largest in the county. He started a pottery in 1830, and also operated a hemp mill. It is said that Tobias Shull operated a blacksmith shop in 1830, and that a Mr. Carnes a mill in 1831.

"Early in the century, perhaps before 1820, Abraham Williamson, a brother of J.D. Williamson, of "Hardscrabble", about two miles south of New Market, Virginia, opened the first store, and the place was known as Williamsport. The name would indicate that the river was being utilized for transportation."

"Another tradition says that William C. Thompson founded Timberville. He was a prominent resident of the community as early as 1833, when he, John Zigler and others were trying to get a free bridge across the river. The place was then called Thompson’s Store. About 1850, the place was known as Riddle’s Tavern. For many years however, Timberville has been the accepted name and was thus incorporated in 1884. The population in 1912, was about four hundred. The Farmers and Merchants Bank was organized in 1908, John H. Hoover President; E.M. Minnick, Vice-President; Jacob A. Garber, later Congressman, Cashier." (Wayland’s A History of Rockingham County, pages 202-203.)

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The above quotation from Wayland seems to bear out the opening statement of the school news item before referred to, that the first house built at Timberville, was built by Daniel Zigler’s father.

It is said that the town takes its present name from the fact of there being much large and fine timber surrounding the place. For a number of years, very many years indeed the river has been spanned by a wooden bridge built of timber out nearby, but have stood the strain of time, use and many floods of the river, until the present bridge was erected in 1884. This bridge is of the old covered type, so popular, and one might any almost universal, in the eighteenth century, and is said to be the last of its kind in the State of Virginia, and it too, it seems. Is now doomed to go the way of all "old things", thus breaking another link in the chain connecting us with past history, And what a pity it is, and one may well ask, why should it be thought necessary to destroy a thing that so well marks an epoch or period, not only in our own states history, but in the history of the nation as well. These old bridges, just as the old blue china which we covet and prize so highly and which we take such great pains to preserve and protect, speak volumes of history in themselves, though all unwritten. Certainly there is room for one at least of these old landmarks to be left standing until time itself shall claim it for its own. This old bridge is built of heavy timbers, strongly trussed and supported, and is today bearing the heavy truck and other traffic without a murmur or complaint. Here’s hoping that it may be left standing.

Just seventy years after building the little one-room affair for school purposes in 1817, a two-story, four-room school building was erected. This building was destroyed by fire in 1913, but in 1914, another four-room building, a part of the present one, was constructed, and in 1923, the present building was completed with the addition of two class rooms; an auditorium; library; home economics room; and principal’s office, while in 1937, a modern agriculture building including class room, shop, and office, was built separately.

The town has three churches—the Church of the Brethren; Lutheran; and Reformed. It also has an Old Folks Home and an Orphans Home, both under the control of the Church of the Brethren, serving a very useful and charitable purpose, caring for some forty to fifty inmates.

As said before, Timberville is situated in one of the most fertile sections of Rockingham County, surrounded by beautiful farms, their broad acres producing everything that grown in the ground. With many acres in grass and many acres in corn, a great number of cattle are grazed, fattened and shipped to the eastern markets. It is also the center of fruit raising, especially peaches and apples, and has a cold storage plant second in size to Winchester only. It is also said to be the largest assembling and shipping point for turkeys, chickens and poultry generally, as well as eggs and other produce. The community is served by the Southern Railway and many are the carload lots of produce and of fruit that go out to all points from Timberville.

The town is on Route #260, which was once known as the "Middle" road leading to Winchester, Virginia, and was perhaps, one of the early main roads leading up and down the Valley. At Columbia Furnace, Route #260 connects with Route #261, leading into Federal Route #11, which leads on north.

For its water supply Timberville has a splendid gravity system, the water being supplied from a find spring at the foot of North Mountain, about three miles to the Northwest of the town; the Public Service and Rural Electrification furnish the town with its power and light.

Truly it may be said that Timberville is one of the thrifty and happy towns of the Valley, and to visit through the section in the spring of the year especially, is not only a delight to the eye; it is refreshing to the spirit and inspires a deeper love of nature and of the beautiful, and a trip in blossom time, and on the railroad especially, from Timberville to Woodstock and further north, is a ride through a continuos bower of beauty

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Indescribably among the lovely apple blossoms. So, if you have poetry in your soul, at blossom time take time off for a ride or a drive from Timberville through the apple blossoms.

Timberville, like the other towns in this section as well as in other parts of the Valley, had its hectic days, its turmoil and anxiety, in the years of the War Between the States. Being a rich agricultural section, it not only furnished much to the Confederate Armies, but was a prey to the ravages of the Federal Army as well, suffering heavily at the hands of Sheridan in his raids through the Valley, and what was not taken or driven off in the way of stock, was destroyed, in addition to the burning of barns and the destruction of farming implements. It would be very hard to estimate the value of the property taken and destroyed. It is enough to any that the loss sustained was very grievous and very great. But let us be grateful that those days are gone and the like of which let us hope, will never be again.

7. ART:
8. SOURCES OF INFORMATION: