Parked at Home 2026: 6, Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historic Park
On Thursday, April 23 from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m., I watched the sixth and final webinar in the 2026 season of Parked at Home, this time visiting Cedar Creek & Belle Grove National Historical Park. Ranger Mark Mello began the talk by comparing Blackstone Valley to Shenandoah Valley and showing beautiful photographs of both parks. According to Ranger Mark, the two spots “began on a similar track: European colonization, early forms of industry”. Both areas have mills, but while the Blackstone River Valley in the North became more industrial, the Shenandoah in the south became remained agrarian. In 1793, Old Slater Mill opened in Pawtucket, RI as “a symbol of this industrial society”, while Isaac Bowman built his mill complex on Cedar Creek in Shenandoah. The Bowman family later built Belle Grove Plantation, a symbol of “agrarian Southern society”. The American Civil War during the mid-19th century further divided these regions.
Ranger Anthony Mazzucco is a visitor services park ranger from Cedar Creek. He described the history of the area from the American Revolutionary War to the present, including a description of the Battle of Cedar Creek in 1864. The park was dedicated in 2002 as number 388 in the National Park System, and the land is managed by five collaborating nonprofit organizations. Ranger Anthony admitted, “The management map of the park looks a little bit like a Jackson Pollock painting.” To help visitors better understand the location of the park, he listed its neighbors: Shenandoah National Park, Antietam National Battlefield, Gettysburg National Military Park, Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historical Park, and many parks the Washington, DC area. He also described the landscape of the valley: rolling ridgelines, mixed woodlots, and red limestone with caves riveling Mammoth Cave in Kentucky and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico.
While peaceful today, the park was the site of a Civil War battle. One casualty of the battle was William Henry Lewis, who had enlisted into the Battery G of the First Rhode Island Light Artillery over three years earlier at age 16. Lewis was wounded in the battle after jumping off a horse to prevent Confederates from capturing a cannon. He died two days later. His best friend had to write a letter to his mother to let her know where her son was buried. The family was never able to retrieve his remains. He was disinterred and reburied in Grave 3589 in Union Cemetery of Winchester, WV. The Soldiers & Sailors Monument located in Providence, RI includes his name.
Many years earlier, Abraham Bowman, the brother of Isaac, had built his homestead Fort Bowman, with dendrochronology dating the building to 1771 or later. Their mother Mary Hite, was the daughter of German immigrant Yost Hite. On the Hite side of the family, Isaac Hite Sr., the brother of Mary, built the original Longmeadow Farm, also known as Traveler’s Rest or Traveler’s Lodge. The red brick house standing today was constructed in the 1840s, although the limestone foundation predates the Revolutionary War; it is privately owned but within the boundaries of the park. Leading up to the revolution, the Bowmans, Hites, and other other prominent landowners formed “committees of safety”, creating their own pro-patriot local government. Meetings happened in secret and were considered “acts of treason against the British Crown”.
Isaac Hite Jr. was attending William & Mary University during the beginning of the war and joined the militia to defend the Tidewater/Chesapeake Bay region. By 1780, because he was wealthy and went to college, he became an officer and was promoted quickly, becoming aide-de-camp to the commander of the unit. At the end of the war he was at the Battle of Yorktown, now part of Colonial National Historical Park, and kept a journal summarizing the events, including the surrender. Because Isaac Jr. likely spoke German, he may have helped to write the articles of surrender for Hessian soldiers to read. Later, Isaac Jr. married Nelly Madison Hite, sister of fourth president James Madison, who was born at Montpelier; their son was named James Madison Hite. For their wedding in 1783, the young couple received 480 acres from the Hite family to built Belle Grove and 15 enslaved people from the Madison family to care for it. The property would expand to about 8000 aces with nearly 300 enslaved people by the 1820s. In his diary, Isaac Jr. quoted John Locke’s Enlightenment philosophy, and yet also wrote about buying and receiving enslaved people. He did not seem to realize this was a contradiction. Today, Belle Grove Planation is part of the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom. River Bend Farm in Uxbridge, MA currently hosts an exhibit on this network.
As for visiting the park yourself, Ranger Anthony notes that it is 7 hours 45 minutes away from Old Slater Mill. Rangers are often on the battlefield or plantation grounds giving talks and tours. Many visitors say, “I saw the arrowhead sign of the highway, and I want to come get my passport stamp”, but they are not always aware of all the park has to offer. To prevent this from being you, Ranger Anthony recommends downloading the NPS app. It will have all the trip planning features, so even if you are “just driving on the highway”, you can see what parks are nearby. Additionally, the park is near Shenandoah Valley Battlefields National Historic District, managed by the Shenandoah Valley Battlefields Foundation. The organization has several Civil War museums and battlefields, including a fully operational industrial mill, Burwell Morgan Mill in Clark County, VA, plus about thirty unique stamps for the National Historic District. This area has certainly been added to my ever-growing list of places to visit!