Name: The Terrace Date: 1897 Image Number: B01cdB19
The Terrace is a Victorian-style residence on Scottsville’s Jackson Street, built in 1897 by Dr. and Mrs. David Pinckney Powers.
The Powers family in 1912
Later The Terrace became the home of Miss Susie Blair after her retirement as a Professor of Speech and Drama at Hollins College. Susie was the grand- daughter of the Dr. and Mrs. Powers and shared her home with her two aunts, Met and Lucy Powers; Mrs. J.P. (Susie) Blair, Susie’s widowed mother; and Kate Stith, a teaching friend of Lucy Powers.
The home contained an extensive collection of Powers family and Scottsville memorabilia. When Scottsville Museum was dedicated on July 4, 1970, Susie Blair became a member of the Museum board and brought a store house of artifacts and memories to share.
Charles A. Lenaham. Photo by Sam and Marguerite Spencer, ca. 1990The Terrace in 2001, looking very much the same as it did in 1897.The Terrace as it appeared in 2010.
Got to play some more yesterday. Had to throw away two to get here. Amazing how much you can lose the groove in a week.
This one is done with paint, graphite, and fountain pen. Again using cards and paper towels and some canning paraffin – things that didn’t come from the art supply store. I seem to get better results with unconventional materials.
I’ve been teaching myself some things about watercolor. It’s harder than it looks. That was the easiest part to learn.
The hardest part to learn – which took me until the third day, and half pad of paper – is like many things you can ruin a good thing by overthinking it.
Next after overthinking, is just knowing when to quit. Surest way to ruin something halfway decent is to keep messing with it when it’s done.
This started a couple of weeks ago. While waiting for some cheap paints and paper to arrive, I played around with a digital stylus on a tablet. That has been fun, and I learned a lot from it. Essentially, it lets me use a photo for reference, picking up color from the image to load in the stylus, then you paint over the photo on a new layer. With all my experience editing photos with digital tools I got the hang of that pretty quick, and like the results – enough that I’ll keep doing that. It’s quick and fun.
Stylus and tablet rendering of anchoring out inside Smith Island, just after sundown.
When I finally got analog materials, I wasn’t surprised to learn that working with those is a whole lot different. And a whole lot harder. My first attempts were, to my eye, overworked and overthought. This was the best of that batch:
I couldn’t seem to disconnect my brain from my hands, and it was pretty obvious my brain didn’t know what the heck was going on. Today, I finally gave up on “trying” and just did a handful of mindless experiments, letting the brush and paper lead. That started to show promise. Not only less frustrating, but less effort, and the results are better.
One of the quick exercises.
This let me realize that, when it comes to visual art, at least, breaking the rules is better than following them. The painting at the top of the page was done less with actual paint brushes. Instead, I used a combination of credit card, spray bottle, toothpick, paper towel, crappy glue chip brush, fountain pen, and yes, a watercolor paintbrush or two.
I hope to try more of this soon, and hope to remember to forget what my brain tells me.
Name: Bruce’s Drug Store Date: ca. 1908 Image Number: SD18cdSD1
T.E. Bruce, ca. 1906
Bruce’s Drug Store began on November 1, 1908, under the name of Scottsville Drug Company. Dr. Luther R. Stinson and Dr. Benjamin L. Dillard, practicing physicians in Scottsville, maintained a small medicine shop in the town’s old apothecary shop on Valley Street (now 510 Valley Street). Finding it inconvenient to keep their shop open as much as the public demanded, the two doctors advertised for a full-time pharmacist in a Richmond newspaper. Thomas Ellison Bruce was working as a pharmacist in Newport News and answered their ad. Ellison and the two doctors formed a partnership in a pharmacy business called the Scottsville Drug Company. In the 1908 photo above, Ellison is shown standing behind the pharmacy counter of this drug store. The medicine bottles behind him held the medicinal supplies Ellison used to fill prescriptions.
First site of Scottsville Drug Company, 1908-1912
Although only twenty years old, Ellison realized the two doctors greatly needed a pharmacist to help them. He drew up a partnership agreement in which each doctor assumed the financial responsibility for his patient’s medicinal charge accounts. If the business operated at a loss, the partnership agreement required the two doctors to personally pay Ellison a salary. Dr. Stinson stated, “After conducting business under this arrangement for one year, we realized Bruce was the only one making any money!” The two doctors soon sold their interests to Ellison, making him the sole owner of the Scottsville Drug Company. The photo above shows the building that first housed Ellison’s drug store at 510 Valley Street; this old apothecary building was built ca. 1832.
About 1911 or 1912, Ellison moved his store to the Pitts Building on Valley Street (now 330 Valley Street). The photo below at left shows Lee Bruce, Ellison’s brother and store clerk, in white shirt and leaning casually against the Scottsville Drug Company’s front display window.
Scottsville Drug Company at 330 Valley Street, 1912
Below, Lee and Ellison pose for a 1913 Kodak snapshot on the drug store’s front steps. In the store’s early days in Scottsville, Lee helped his brother cover their long hours of daily operation for several years. The drug store opened seven days a week, although Sunday sales were for medicinal purposes only. In the early 1920’s, Ellison changed his store’s name to Bruce’s Drug Store.
Lee Bruce and Ellison Bruce, 1913
In late 1927, Ellison purchased the old Carlton House hotel, which was the building next door at the corner of Valley and West Main Street. After extensive renovations, Bruce’s Drug Store moved into this building in 1928 and continued in operation at that location until November 22, 2003. Shown below is a 1928 Burgess post card of Valley Street, which shows the newly renovated Bruce’s Drug Store in the red brick building at photo left. The second photo below shows an interior view of the drug store during its September 1928 grand opening.
Bruce’s Drug Store at corner of Valley and Main Streets,1928
Interior of Bruce’s Drug Store on Opening Day, 1928
In his store’s early days in Scottsville, Ellison ordered his drug store merchandise through a wholesale ‘drummer.’ Drummers were salesmen, who traveled about the area, ‘drumming up business for their companies. A drummer would arrive in Scottsville by train, spend the night at the Traveler’s Rest Hotel on Main Street, and leave by train the next day with Ellison’s handwritten order. On the weekend, all of the drummer’s orders were turned in to the wholesaler, who packed and shipped each order during the next week via railroad freight. Such freight shipments arrived at Bruce’s Drug Store roughly seven to ten days after the order was placed. By the 1930’s, the automobile expedited this procedure so that orders could be delivered in two or three days. In today’s world (2004), computers handle orders with next day delivery via truck.
From its early days, Bruce’s Drug Store began to fill the medicinal needs of the town’s citizens and the country population of south Albemarle, Buckingham, and Fluvanna Counties. Ellison Bruce, and later his son, Tom Bruce, served the needs of the community with a generosity in time and account payments. During the 1930s when money was a scarcity in this predominantly farming area, payments on account to Bruce were sometimes made by barter. When customers were unable to pick up prescriptions, the pharmacists themselves delivered them.
Prescription for beer during Prohibition
In the 1930’s, the State of Virginia allowed the sale of alcohol only for medicinal purposes. At Bruce’s Drug Store, this sale went on with the required prescriptions. However, the sale of medicinal alcohol became too frequent, and ABC officials withdrew the pharmacy’s right for alcohol sales.
When Ellison became sole owner of Scottsville Drug Company, he added a small soda fountain. A revolving, hand-turned drum produced carbonated water for soda drinks, and Ellison made ice cream in a hand-turned freezer. Photos of his first storefront show ‘Bruce’s Ice Cream Parlor’ and ‘Drink Coca Cola’ stenciled on the store’s front window. About 1920, Ellison installed an electric-operated soda fountain and ordered his ice cream from a commercial dairy. When Bruce’s Drug Store moved to the corner of West Main and Valley Streets in 1928, Ellison installed a modern soda fountain with counter stools and tables with ice cream chairs (shown in grand opening photo above). Later Ellison installed two booths, which were popular with Scottsville High School students. From 1930 – 1951, Bruce’s Drug Store made its own ice cream, which is remembered by many as the best treat ever. The soda fountain business, however, gradually became unprofitable and was removed from the store in April 1958.
Amanda Payne Hall remembers free ice cream.
Memories of Bruce’s Drug Store include its important place in the community for medicines and prescriptions. Citizens of all ages fondly remember ‘going to Bruce’s’ for a soda, ice cream, or just plain good conversation. Druggist Bruce, slight in build, large in friendliness and smiles, would cram a mountain of ice cream into a nickel cone, much to the delight of his customers. As one soda fountain regular fondly recalls, “A great Scottsville memory is going to Bruce’s Drug Store for lunch. Some days I forgot about the real food and just got my favorite ice cream cone, a black raspberry triple dip. I have not had such good ice cream since then!”
George Howard remembers buying a milkshake with his first paycheck.
Ellison Bruce operated Bruce’s Drug Store until his death in November 1947. His son, Thomas Ellison Bruce, Jr., took over management of the drug store after his father’s death. Although educated as an accountant, Tom, Jr., went back to school in pursuit of a pharmacy degree at the Medical College of Virginia. He completely remodeled the drug store in 1953, installing new fixtures and air conditioning. In 1969, Hurricane Camille flooded Bruce’s Drug Store with 8.5 feet of water and James River mud, destroying its interior. Tom again remodeled the drug store and reopened in 1970. Two years later in June 1972, Tropical Storm Agnes flooded Bruce’s Drug Store with 12 feet of water. Again Tom remodeled and reopened his drug store.
Tom Bruce continued to operate Bruce’s Drug Store after the floods and employed another pharmacist, G. Richard Sago, in October 1974. Tom retired in April 1977, when he sold his drug store to Richard Sago and his wife, Ann, who is also a pharmacist. The Sagos operated Bruce’s Drug Store at the corner of Valley and West Main Street until November 22, 2003, when they moved the store to its fourth and current location in the old Maxwell Furniture building across from Scottsville Museum on Main Street.
T finished up 38 pieces of art for a show that opens Friday. We delivered everything on Sunday. It’s a really great body of work that’s been underway for most of the past six months. She was quite the dynamo in a fit of creative fervor.
I’ll post more updates here of the opening and the final gallery space over the coming weeks.
Here’s a blog post she just published of some background. Since the onset of COVID, when we had a lot of time and nowhere to go, she cut nearly 10,000 circles of paper. By hand. Some of those are now included in four pieces in the show.
We had a nice trip over the mountain to Staunton, one of our favorite nearby towns. And a very nice gallery space, too. They’ve posted info about the show here, featuring some of T’s work in the poster:
A nice reprieve from the middle of winter. This is 20+ minutes of sites and sounds from the salt marshes of Mathews County, Virginia. A week on a remote barrier island in the Chesapeake Bay. Over the holidays I had time to go back and review it.
We spent a lot of time kayaking through the shallow winding creeks, often just drifting with the current.
It’s long, so give yourself some time, and good audio – much of this is just the natural sounds of birds and beaches.
The odd noises starting at 12:00 are Clapper Rails. They’re really shy, I’ve never seen one up close, but one stepped out of the grass for a closeup, not realizing we were standing above it on the dock.
Birds seen and/or heard in the video:
Black Scoter
Sandpiper
Clapper Rail
Hooded Merganser
Boat-tailed Grackle
Double-crested Cormorant
Great Blue Heron
At night, there were Great Horned Owls, in the mornings Loons.
