New ‘Anecdotes’ Shine Light On Lesser-Known Stories

Five new stories have been added to “Rockbridge Anecdotes,” the online series of usually light, mostly brief, never solemn tales of area social and historical interest.

The following are the new “Anecdotes”:

• The history and demolition of the Old Blue Hotel in 1946, recounted in news articles from the 1940s.

• The art of William D. Washington, a Virginiaborn, Europe-trained, New York-based artist whom Francis H.

Smith brought to Virginia Military Institute in 1869 to establish a fine arts department.

• Two memoirs that vividly describe life in Lexington in the 18th and 19th centuries: Mary McDowell Greenlee’s deposition in an 1806 court case about the Borden Grant — given when she was 95 and plenty sharp — and James Senseney’s stories about his boyhood in Lexington from 1870 to 1882.

• The secrets of the Pub Club, less famed and less erudite than the county’s other discussion clubs, Fortnightly and Ignorance.

“Anecdotes” can be found, free and unencumbered, at www.RockbridgeAnecdotes.org. The series is an offshoot of the seriously scholarly series “Rockbridge Epilogues.