Celebrate Walter Reed's 171st Birthday at the Birthplace

The Fairfield Foundation hosts the 2nd Annual Celebration of Dr. Walter Reed’s Birthday at Gloucester’s Iconic Walter Reed Birthplace, located at 4021 Hickory Fork Road, on Saturday, September 10, from 10am to 2pm. Dr. Reed, remembered for his work investigating the spread of typhoid and yellow fevers in military camps, was born in the small dwelling in Belroi on September 13, 1851, while his father was an itinerant preacher to Methodist congregations in the Gloucester, Mathews, and King and Queen County circuit.

In addition to tours of the house, visitors may participate in public archaeology to search for evidence of the early Belroi community. Cheryl Dale, president of Mathews’ Bay Quilters will demonstrate period quilting and visitors will be invited to try their hand at the craft. A quilt entirely hand made by Bonnie Betz of Bay Quilters, to take the place of an older worn quilt in the Birthplace, will be on display. The Walter Reed Garden Club will demonstrate flower arranging with natural materials and will raffle arrangements at 11am, 12 noon, and 1pm. They will also be planting beds of herbs and daffodils and welcome help! Riverside Walter Reed Hospital, opened on September 11, 1977 and celebrating 45 years, will be providing information on infection prevention in honor of Walter Reed’s contributions to public health. The Gloucester Museum of History will have a booth at the site and the Middle Peninsula Amateur Radio Club will be broadcasting live. Historical reenactors Dave Pondolfino and Katrina White-Brown will provide historical interpretation. Gloria Waller, representing the Middle Peninsula African American Genealogical and Historical Society, will present information on family history research. At the time of Walter Reed’s birth, many free and enslaved African Americans lived in the area.

Fundraising events will be held during the day. A cakewalk will feature cakes donated by members of the Gloucester Woman’s Club, Cardinal Cakes, businesses on Gloucester Main Street, and members of the Fairfield Foundation staff. Dance around the numbers to Cuban music for $10 and play until you win, or the day’s events conclude. A painting that won Honorable Mention in the 2022 Daffodil Festival poster contest by Robin Marshall, Evening at Walter Reed’s Birthplace, will be raffled for $5 for one ticket or $20 for 5 tickets. The raffle drawing will be held at 2 pm and can be seen live on the Fairfield Foundation’s Facebook page. Prints of the painting will be available for $50 and $25. All proceeds benefit the Gloucester Preservation Foundation’s continued preservation and maintenance of the Birthplace. A local food truck, Shore Bites, will be on hand and will donate a portion of the day’s receipts.

A lecture on Walter Reed’s career will be presented at 2 p.m. on the Birthplace lawn by Colonel John R. Pierce, U.S. Army (Retired), M.D., President of the Walter Reed Society, Inc., who served as chief of pediatrics, director of medical education, and chief of the medical staff at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He is the co-author of Yellow Jack: How Yellow Fever Ravaged America and Walter Reed Discovered Its Deadly Secrets.

The Reed family lived in the crossroads community when it “was a neighborhood thickly settled . . . about midway the circuit, and a good school was there,” according to Jefferson W. Stubbs, property owner and Bellamy Church member. In 1852, William Roy Jones and Isabella Taliaferro Jones moved to the neighborhood and built their home, named “Bell Roi.” By the time a post office was established at the turn of the century, the community was dubbed Belroi.

In 1926, the Birthplace was purchased and preserved by the Medical Society of Virginia. In 1968, the deed was passed to the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA), and the local Joseph Bryan Branch acquired more furnishings to interpret the house as a mid-19th-century dwelling. After the local chapter was dissolved, the Gloucester Preservation Foundation (GPF) was formed to care for the site. All this work ensured the rare survival of an architectural style once common throughout 19th-century Virginia.

The Fairfield Foundation has been working with the GPF for more than a decade to help better understand and interpret the property. Fairfield acquired neighboring parcels to preserve the historic landscape, and partnered with the GPF to maintain the property and manage educational outreach activities there. A grant from Virginia Humanities was used to develop new interpretive signs. Three developed for children will be dedicated at the September 10 Birthday Party at the Birthplace.

The mission of the Fairfield Foundation is to promote and involve the public in hands-on archaeology, historic preservation and related education activities within Virginia's Middle Peninsula and surrounding areas. Activities are conducted to educate and involve people of all ages in the process of archaeological and historical research, to provide outreach to students and the public about historic landscapes of the region, and to encourage discussion, research, collaboration, and preservation of historic resources, including buildings, archaeological sites, historic documents and oral history. The Foundation's major projects include archaeological outreach at the Burwell plantation known as Fairfield/Carter's Creek, restoration and repurposing at Timberneck House at Machicomoco State Park, preservation of the Walter Reed Birthplace, and interpretation of the restored 1930s Edgehill Service Station, which serves as its headquarters -- the Center for Archaeology, Preservation, and Education (CAPE).