Historic Crab Orchard Museum & Pioneer Park

The museum center houses Crab Orchard Museum's permanent exhibits and one changing exhibit.  Covering topics ranging from the geological origins of Southwest Virginia through the modern day, the gallery offers an overview of our region's history.

Crab Orchard Museum Permanent Gallery Exhibits, Pt. 1

Maps and surveying tools introduce visitors to early impressions of the landscape of Southwest Virginia.

The maps show how cartographers understood of the appearance of North America at different times and how their understandings changed as a result of exploration.  

Early mapmakers drew the state of Virginia extending all the way to the Pacific Ocean, which they thought was located approximately where Beckley, West Virginia is today.  

The brightly colored 1745 map shows the locations of different Indian tribes.  The maps of Virginia reflect political changes as well.  The 1826 and 1849 maps were made before the establishment of West Virginia, which was carved off the western end of Virginia.  

Tazewell County was large geographically before West Virginia split out to become its own state in 1863, siding with the Union during the American Civil War.  The northern half of Tazewell County became McDowell County, West Virginia.  The county seat of Tazewell was first known as Jeffersonville.  

Exploration

The formation of the Appalachian mountains and fossils of early animal inhabitants.

Long before recorded history, the mountains of our area were underwater.  We know this because of the plant and animal fossils that have been found here.  

A fossil is an imprint of a plant or animal on rock.  All of these fossils were found in our region.  This section contains fossilized animals, including the ancestor of a toad captured in the rock.  

The wooly mammoth leg bone, tusk, and molars were found nearby in Saltville, Virginia. 

The middle section contains minerals such as quartz, coal, iron, and salt.  The kettle ball is a round ball of iron found in the roof of a coal mine.  As it loosens and falls, it becomes dangerous to coal miners.  There are large deposits of coal in our area.  Coal is made when heat and pressure is applied to plants.  

Geology

The early settlers were called "long hunters" as they stayed away from home for long periods of time.

In the 1750s and 1760s, long hunters came through this area to hunt.  They were called long hunters for 2 reasons:  they stayed away from home hunting for long periods of time, and they hunted with long rifles.  

Long hunters were drawn to this area because of the animals whose skins would be valuable to sell or trade, including deer, beaver, fox, raccoon, mountain lion, and bear. 

The items on the wall next to the long rifle were used to clean or fire the gun.  The gun is fired by a piece of flint hitting a piece of steel, which produces a spark, causing the gunpowder to ignite.  The gun only fires one bullet before needing to be reloaded, so long hunters often also carried a flintlock pistol and a knife.  

Above this case, notice the matchlock gun.  Made in the 1600s, the matchlock is the type of gun that would have been used by the colonists at Jamestown.  This gun fired much like a cannon.  The wick was lit, and gunpowder was poured into the flash pan on top.  The hunter touched the wick to the powder to light it.  It is a very heavy gun and would have been placed on a stand or fence to help support it and hold it straight to shoot.

Early Settlers

Learn about the animals that are native to our region.

All of the animals in this exhibit are native to our region, with one exception - the coyote.  

The bald eagle you see at the top right is our national bird and has a wingspan of 7 feet across.  The bald eagle and the golden eagle, on the top left, are endangered species that were hunted illegally in Thompson Valley, Virginia by a man who was then fined and obligated to donate the birds to the museum as part of his punishment.  

Other animals on exhibit include the turkey, bobcat, white-tail deer fawn, and black bear cub.

The one animal not native to our region is the western coyote.  In the early 1950s, this particular coyote was purchased by a man who lived on Jewell Ridge and brought from the Western United States to train his dogs.  He bought two coyote puppies, but they both escaped.  One was hit and killed by a car, and this one made its way to Burke’s Garden.  Over 11 months, this coyote killed 410 sheep, valued at $23,000 in 1953 - the equivalent of almost $210,000 in modern money.  The coyote became known as “The Varmint” because coyotes were unknown then to Southwestern Virginia and no one knew what sort of creature was killing the sheep.  After many months of trying to catch the Varmint, a professional hunter named Clell Lee was brought in from Arizona along with his dogs, Lightning Lee, Gypsy, Runt, and Freckles, to track and drive the animal.  Lee was paid $2,500 plus expenses to come to Burke’s Garden, but there was no guarantee for success.  On February 22nd, 1953 Lee and his dogs drove the Varmint into the Brown Family graveyard where it was shot and killed by Alfred Jones & Hugh E. Cox, both of Tazewell County.  The outlaw was strung up in the middle of Burke’s Garden and hundreds drove in to see the mysterious predator.  A cast of his teeth was verified by a veterinarian and only then was it confirmed that the terror of Burke’s Garden was a western coyote.  The arrival of the Varmint changed farming in the region, with several farmers either adding fencing and guard animals or giving up sheep farming altogether.

Hanging on the wall is the skin of an adult black bear nicknamed Old Hitler.  This bear was about 30 years old and weighed almost 600 lbs. when it was killed.  He terrorized the livestock of Burke’s Garden, Virginia, killing hogs, cows, and sheep during the 1940s, at the same time as World War II.  The residents of Burke’s Garden named him “Old Hitler” after Adolf Hitler, leader of Nazi Germany, who was ruling over Europe just as Old Hitler was ruling over Burke’s Garden.

Wildlife

Men from this area fought for American independence and garrisoned local forts.

During the Revolutionary War several citizens from this area fought in the 1774 Battle of Point Pleasant (now in West Virginia) on the Ohio River.  Many historians consider that battle with the Shawnee to be the first battle of the War for Independence.  The British used that confrontation with Chief Cornstalk and the Shawnee warriors to distract area residents from the problems with Britain.  

While the men were away fighting, Daniel Boone was left here to garrison the local forts: Russell’s Fort in Russell County, Bowen’s Fort at Maiden Spring, and Witten’s Fort at Crab Orchard, both in Tazewell County.  A replica of Witten’s Fort, originally constructed in 1927 and recently fully restored, is located on the west side of the museum center.

The 1780 Battle of King’s Mountain, fought near the North Carolina-South Carolina state line, was an important engagement in the War for Independence.  Loyalists, Americans loyal to the English King George III, fought against American patriot militia.  Both the loyalists and the patriots were dressed the same, much like long hunters. Neither side wore the distinctive uniforms of General George Washington’s Continental Army nor General Cornwallis’ Redcoats.  

After loyalist leader Major Patrick Ferguson threatened to “lay waste to their homes with fire and sword,” the Backwater Men, as they were sometimes called, mustered in Sycamore Shoals, near Elizabethton, and organized the region’s militias into the Overmountain Men, determined to chase Ferguson down.  They pursued him for two weeks through snow and rain to King’s Mountain, North Carolina.  

Southwestern Virginia’s Colonel William Campbell led the charge and the battle was a decisive victory for the patriots.  Thomas Jefferson declared the King’s Mountain victory turned the tide of the war in the patriots’ favor.  

Several Tazewell County men participated in the battle and some were killed.  Philip Greever,  of Burke’s Garden, fired the first shot and Rees Bowen of Maiden Spring was killed in battle.  The case behind you holds what is believed to be the gun that Philip Greever used at the Battle of King’s Mountain.

Revolutionary War

Over a century before the pioneers arrived, a Native American village was located on this site.

In the 1970s the state began building the highway in front of the museum and found a prehistoric Native American village.  The model of the village in our exhibit is based on what was discovered during two archaeological digs that took place here.  

This village existed in the early 1500s and the Native Americans probably lived here for 30 or 40 years before moving on to other areas.  Although the archeologists from the Smithsonian Institute could not be certain which tribe lived here, some evidence suggests they were of the Chisca or Yuchi tribe.  

When Europeans and their African slaves moved to this site in the late 1760s, there were no Native Americans living here.  All that was found here was a crab apple orchard, so the excavated site of the village was called Big Crab Orchard, after which the museum was named in 1978.

In the first case, you will see cooking items.  When pottery was not available to use, Native Americans used turtle shells as bowls.

Native American braves, who had killed a wolf or a bear, would wear the jawbone to let everyone know they were good hunters.  The bracelet is made of turkey wing bones.  

When the village was discovered, it was evident that the men were buried with jewelry.  The women often were buried with household tools. 

The wigwam is a replica of a Native American house from the 1500s.  The men cleared the land for building wigwams and planting gardens and made the frame for the wigwam.  The women wove mats made from cattail and put them on the structure.  Bark would also have been used as a covering.  One of the reasons the Native Americans could live here year round was that they planted crops.  While the men hunted and were the warriors, women planted, tended, and harvested crops like corn, beans, pumpkins and gourds.  Some vegetables were eaten fresh and others were dried and stored for winter.  
Women made clothing from skins that they rubbed until they were dry and soft.  They also made pottery from clay they took from the Clinch River.  The clay was dried, then pounded into a powder.  They sifted the powder to remove any impurities before mixing it with water and shells.  The clay was then coiled into a pot, which was air dried for 2 weeks before being put into hot ashes to fire.  The women also made baskets from vines and birch bark, and they used gourds that they grew in the garden for storage.

Native Americans

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Crab Orchard Museum Permanent Gallery Exhibits, Pt. 1

Exploration

Exploration

Geology

Geology

Early Settlers

Early Settlers

Wildlife

Wildlife

Revolutionary War

Revolutionary War

Native Americans

Native Americans

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