Heritage Conservation in the United

States: Enhancing the Presence of the

Past John H. Sprinkle Jr.
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“This outstanding book speaks eloquently and powerfully to an ongoing and
important challenge which underscores that, on this noble journey we call
historic preservation, our efforts must reflect the ‘Face of America.’ Dr. Sprinkle
emphasizes that, if we are to be fully successful in our preservation efforts, we
must be true to history and include a recognition of the contributions of all
cultures in the development of our nation. A must read for all those who care for
the preservation of our diverse and rich collective heritage.”
Robert G. Stanton, 15th Director of the National Park Service

“As the historic preservation movement stands at yet another inflection point, John
H. Sprinkle takes us back to a new generation of practitioners who stood within
a formalized system of heritage conservation. He documents the intersections
(and contradictions therein) between the preservation movement and the modern
fight for Civil Rights. This book promises to serve as a self-reflection, and
much-needed context, for a field looking to re-evaluate the very systems codified
by the New Preservationists of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s.”
Priya Chhaya, Public Historian
HERITAGE CONSERVATION IN
THE UNITED STATES

Heritage Conservation in the United States begins to trace the growth of the American
historic preservation movement over the last 50 years, viewed from the context of
the civil rights and environmental movements.
The first generation of the New Preservation (1966–1991) was characterized by
the establishment of the bureaucratic structures that continue to shape the practice
of heritage conservation in the United States. The National Register of Historic
Places began with less than a thousand historic properties and grew to over 50,000
listings. Official recognition programs expanded, causing sites that would never
have been considered as either significant or physically representative in 1966 to
now be regularly considered as part of a historic preservation planning process.
The book uses the story of how sites associated with African American history
came to be officially recognized and valued, and how that process challenged the
conventions and criteria that governed American preservation practice.This book
is designed for the historic preservation community and students engaged in the
study of historic preservation.

John H. Sprinkle, Jr. is Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland’s

School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation. He has written extensively about
the history of historic preservation in the United States.
HERITAGE CONSERVATION
IN THE UNITED STATES
Enhancing the Presence of the Past

John H. Sprinkle, Jr.

Cover image: Listed in the National Register of Historic Places in
1974, Savannah, Georgia’s Victorian District represented a fairly intact
neighborhood of well-built frame houses, many of which are ornamented
with the exuberant sawn-work details of the late nineteenth-century
carpenter-builder. The district was also the “testing ground of a unique
conservation effort to renew a valuable but deteriorated housing stock,
to attract a solid economic base, and to integrate new compatible
construction without displacing the low- and moderate-income
homeowners and renters who have lived there for several generations.”
Source: Historic American Buildings Survey: GA-1169. Workers at 211
East Duffy Street.
First published 2023
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work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Sprinkle, John H., author.
Title: Heritage conservation in the United States : enhancing the
presence of the past / John H. Sprinkle, Jr.
Description: New York, NY : Routledge, 2023. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022010203 (print) | LCCN 2022010204 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780367001063 (hardback) | ISBN 9780367429041 (paperback) |
ISBN 9781003314790 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Historic preservation—United States. | Cultural
property—Protection—United States. | United States—Cultural policy.
Classification: LCC E159 .S6964 2023 (print) | LCC E159 (ebook) |
DDC 363.6/90973—dc23/eng/20220509
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010203
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022010204
ISBN: 978-0-367-00106-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-42904-1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-31479-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003314790
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For John Eastham Sprinkle & James Harrison Sprinkle
CONTENTS

List of Figures x
List of Appendices xi
Acknowledgmentsxii

Introduction: Like Saul on the Road to Damascus 1

1 The New Preservation 11

2 Visibility and Representation 50

3 Drifting Away From the Truth 84

4 Districts and Displacement 115

5 Awakening and Acknowledgment 157

6 Heritage Conservation and Generational Significance 204

Appendices231
Index262
FIGURES

0.1 Hamilton Grange 4

1.1 “Roots” 17
2.1 Interpretation at the George Washington Carver National
Historic Site 55
2.2 Cedar Hill 59
2.3 Home of Paul Laurence Dunbar 63
2.4 National Park Service themes and concepts 69
2.5 “New Faces at Mt. Rushmore” 71
3.1 Home of Col. Charles Young 102
4.1 “Neighborhood Conservation” 127
5.1 Mount Zion Cemetery 159
5.2 Home of Levi Coffin 183
APPENDICES

1.1 Inner City Ventures Fund Projects, 1982 233

1.2 The Charleston Principles, 1990 235
2.1 African American Sites of National Significance, 1973 236
3.1 Women Represented at National Historic Landmarks, 1980 238
4.1 Contemporary Ethnic Districts in the National Register, 1975 240
4.2 Ethnic Representation in the National Park System and
National Historic Landmarks, 1972 242
4.3 Report to the NEA Study Committee, 1975 246
5.1 Proposed National Register Criteria and Definitions, 1979 248
6.1 Statistical Profile of the National Register of Historic Places,
1967–1990252
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This is my third book on the history of the American historic preservation

­movement and for a variety of reasons it was easily the most difficult narrative to
craft. Many of the ideas, analogies, and case studies were first explored together
with my students from the University of Maryland’s School of Architecture, Plan-
ning, and Preservation. Over the last four years, they and my fellow teachers,
including Donald Linebaugh, Michelle Magalong, Dennis Pogue, and Jeremy
Wells, were very kind to an itinerant adjunct whose day job sometimes compli-
cated his teaching assignments.
This work was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic in a number of ways,
the most telling of which was the inability to access archival materials during
much of the project, which in turn increased the value of library resources.
I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the librarians at the Department of the
Interior in Washington, DC, as well as the staff at the Alexandria, Virginia Kate
Waller Barrett Branch Library, Black History Museum, and Board of Architec-
tural Review. My thanks to Mary Ames, Sherry Hulfish Browne, and Krystyn
Moon for their insights into local history. The librarians in the Maryland Room
at the Hornbake Library at the University of Maryland also provided substantial
assistance. Research for this book benefitted substantially from a Pocantico Resi-
dential Fellowship sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation and
the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation. My most hospitable stay in Tarrytown,
New York, charted the course for this endeavor.
As I move on to other endeavors after more than two decades with the
National Park Service, I must leave some accounting of the dedicated histori-
ans, archaeologists, architects, and architectural historians found at the agency’s
headquarters in Washington, DC. While the views and conclusions in this book
are mine alone and should not be interpreted as representing the opinions or
 Acknowledgments xiii

policies of the National Park Service or the U.S. Government, my u ­ nderstanding

of the evolution of the first generation of the New Preservation has benefit-
ted immensely from a long association with my federal colleagues (both active
and retired), including Thomas King, Mary McPartland, Brown Morton, Loretta
Neumann, Dwight Pitcaithely, Constance Ramirez, John Renaud, Jerry Rogers,
Michael Shelton, Carol Shull, de Teel Patterson Tiller, and Robert Utley, I owe a
special debt to NPS Chief Historian, Turkiya Lowe, my officemate, LuAnn Jones,
and our colleagues Kelly Spradley-Kruowsky, Jeffrey Durbin, Porsha D ­ ossie,
Eleanor Mahoney, and Perri Meldon, among many others. My great thanks to
former National Park Service Director Robert Stanton for re-introducing me to
Mr. Frederick Douglass.
Esther White, my partner in all things worth doing, read every word, sentence,
and paragraph of this manuscript, at least twice—and for that, and for so very
much more, I thank her. Now that this third act is complete, it is time for our
next adventure.
INTRODUCTION
Like Saul on the Road to Damascus

On October 15, 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed the National Historic
Preservation Act, which coincidentally was also the day that the Black Pan-
thers were established in Oakland, California.1 That evening, the ABC televi-
sion network broadcast the musical Brigadoon, starring Robert Goulet and Peter
Falk, in which two American tourists discover a Scottish village that that had
been frozen in time to protect it from change. Brigadoon served as an anal-
ogy for the transformation of preservation within the context of social, cultural,
and economic changes that consumed the United States during the 1960s and
beyond. The growing tension between the desire to preserve remnants of the
past, like a fly stuck in amber, and that of adapting these resources as useful
components of a relevant past was commonly expressed during the decade. By
the end of the Johnson administration, the “New Preservation” was operation-
alized over the next generation as participants sought to expand the types of
properties recognized on the National Register of Historic Places; to integrate
the consideration of historic places within federal project planning; and to pro-
vide economic incentives for the rehabilitation of historic properties. The first
generation of the New Preservation saw the gradual enhancement of the kinds
of properties thought worthy of conservation, a process illustrated by the com-
pilation of entries in the National Register of Historic Places, the institutional
establishment of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP), State
Historic Preservation Offices (SHPOs), Certified Local Governments (CLGs),
and eventually, Tribal Historic Preservation Offices (THPOs); each seated within
the rise of the Cultural Resources Management (CRM) enterprise. All of these
administrative changes to the bureaucratic systems that managed the considera-
tion and conservation of official memory took place within the context of the

DOI: 10.4324/9781003314790-1
2 Introduction

modern American civil rights and environmental movements—a cultural inter-

section that has been little explored by historians.

Gambling in the Institution

In a famous scene from the film Casablanca, Captain Louis Renault, played by
Claude Rains, loudly proclaims that he was “Shocked, shocked to find gambling”
going on in Rick’s American Café. In a similar way, to find racist thought among
historic preservation practitioners during the second half of the 20th century
should not be surprising, given the privileged social background and economic
status of many of the movement’s founders. No one should be shocked to learn
that Alabama Congressman Albert Raines, who led the commission that laid the
foundation for the National Historic Preservation Act, was an avowed segrega-
tionist.2 Other proponents, like Jane Jacobs, present a more complex story. Fol-
lowing her mantra, the preservation movement honored diversity, at least when
it came to architectural styles, adopting the concept of a historic district with its
variety of building types and uses. “The sense of history,” noted Arthur Ziegler,
was “strongest in a neighborhood with many old buildings; where a progression
of style exists, there can be equal interest in the changes that the neighborhood
has undergone over the years.”3 Indeed, when asked to address “the Negro ques-
tion” as part of her landmark book, The Death and Life of American Cities, Jacobs
was remarkably silent.4
Jacobs’ dilemma presented a common pattern—that the pervasive and
­imbedded nature of structural racism was such that it was clearly not a problem
that the preservation movement could solve. And yet one characteristic of the
movement was that it often saw itself as precisely the right remedy for whatever ill
was ailing American society. If Americans were “rootless” without an appreciation
for continuity and community heritage, historic preservation and heritage tour-
ism was the answer. If the country was involved in an energy crisis, the qualities of
environmentally sensitive traditional design were a great solution. If communities
were experiencing an economic downturn, then adaptive use of historic buildings
was just what the doctor ordered because of the local economic impact of such
endeavors. Since its entry onto the national scene on either side of World War II,
the preservation movement was often justified as a useful community undertaking
because of its pragmatic problem-solving collateral results. Of course, as shown by
James Lindgren and others, the motivations among the white gentry who estab-
lished many of the national, regional, and statewide preservation organizations in
the late 19th and early 20th centuries were never purely un-self-centered.5
Indeed, historic preservation in the post-World War II era justly earned and
maintained its elitist image, with all of the incumbent characteristics of noblesse
oblige as a justification for the maintenance of the status quo. Rather than ques-
tion the presence of racism among the movement’s leadership, which was surely
there, perhaps another appropriate avenue might more readily be to examine to
 Introduction 3

what extent the dominant culture of white supremacy influenced the criteria and
conventions established during the 1960s. More importantly, once the inherent
cultural biases of the founders were revealed, how did the movement change to
accommodate a more diverse view of American history?
In fact, the extension of the continuum of historic significance to include
places of state and local value was vitally important in expanding how practition-
ers viewed the kinds of places that a variety of people might find as worthy of
conservation. Nationally significant properties included some 900 places in 1969
when the first edition of the National Register was published; a quarter-century
later the list topped over 50,000. As in the biblical story of Saul on the road to
Damascus, the movement was at first blind to its exclusionary content and con-
ventions; its interpretive narrative that generally omitted all but white men; that
centered high style over the vernacular: but once these sins were revealed, how
did historic preservation’s advocates react, once the scales fell down from their
eyes?

Hamilton Grange
Prior to 1966, the historic preservation community often failed to consider the
values of minority, ethnic, and low-income groups. In some cases, racism was
clearly at the core of the endeavor, in others the impact of a segregated society was
perhaps more nuanced. One of the most troublesome episodes centered around
efforts to relocate Alexander Hamilton’s home, “The Grange,” out of its Harlem
neighborhood to what was considered by some a more appropriate setting.
Originally seated within a 32-acre estate, Hamilton Grange was moved for the
first time in 1889 as the urban street grid of Manhattan reached 143rd Street. The
home was adaptively used as the parish house for St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
that was built adjacent to the new site. By the 1920s the home had become sur-
rounded by larger structures that overwhelmed its setting and, in 1933, the site
was acquired by the American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society (ASHPS),
a New York-based association that was a leader in regional conservation activities
on either side of World War II.
After operating the site as a traditional house museum, in 1950 the leadership
of the ASHPS observed that the “shifting character of the population about the
Grange” had resulted in a reduction in visitation.6 This solidified the Society’s
emerging commitment to secure an alternative location for the building. Ten years
later the building’s physical integrity and its neighboring environment had wors-
ened. Despite frequent calls from preservationists and other influential persons,
the city’s banking community refused to assist in rescuing and restoring the home
to it is former glory. Encroachments were “so acute” that the environment was
“disgraceful” and “completely unworthy” of Hamilton’s national stature.7 Seated
in the shadow of newer buildings, with its distinctive porches removed, the home
looked more like a “slum” than a “shrine.” Indeed, “compared to Mount Vernon
4 Introduction

FIGURE 0.1 Hamilton Grange, Harlem, New York City. Alexander Hamilton’s home,
“The Grange” was moved first in 1889 as served as the parish house for
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. By the 1920s the home had lost much of
its architectural distinctiveness and was hemmed in and overwhelmed by
new construction.
Source: Historic American Buildings Survey: HABS NY-6335. Photograph by Jack Boucher,
June 1962.

and Monticello, the Grange looked “more like the former residence of Uncle
Tom than the seat of a Founding Father.”8
After private-sector efforts faltered, in 1962 Congress assigned the under-
taking to the National Park Service which was left with three basic relocation
options: retain the building at its present site; move it to a city-owned parcel in
Harlem, or transport it across Manhattan to a new site adjacent to Grant’s Tomb.
New York City Parks Commissioner Robert Moses had offered a small lot on
the nearby City College campus and recommended that the home be converted
for academic purposes. Park Service planners rejected the proposed adaptive use,
preferring instead to continue its primary role as a memorial to Hamilton.9 With
little previous experience with the impact of house museums the “distinction of
having a national monument in the community” seemed to elude some H ­ arlem
residents.10 Other community leaders, such as future Representative Charles
B. Rangel, saw the value of neighborhood conservation efforts to retain and
enhance community pride.11
In the early 1950s, the noted architectural historian Talbot Hamlin had
strongly urged moving Hamilton Grange to the site overlooking the Hudson
 Introduction 5

because it would provide an appropriate historical setting for the building

where its architectural qualities could be appreciated within a reconstructed
landscape. Having been assigned the stewardship of the memorial to General
Ulysses Grant in 1958, the Park Service also envisioned economies of managing
both properties on the same site. Regional Director Ronald Lee reported in
1965 that there was “no question whatsoever” in the minds of his professional
staff that the Hudson River site “would be a vast improvement” over relocating
the building within Harlem.12 Part of the justification was “recently discovered”
information that Hamilton had originally considered building his home near
the proposed relocation site—a ­revelation that enhanced a “growing sentiment
in New York among thoughtful people” that the Hudson River site provided a
more appropriate setting.13
The New York City Landmarks Commission countered that Hamilton Grange
could have been a “great asset” to a “renewing” neighborhood that was “entitled”
to “special consideration” by preservation planners as a “deprived” area. Restor-
ing the building at the current site would “best satisfy the condition of service to
the community” but, given pragmatic considerations, the Grange “could never
be much more than it is now.” Thus, it concluded that leaving the building in
Harlem “would be rather an insult to the memory of Alexander Hamilton than a
tribute.”14 At least one advocate proposed centering the home at its original loca-
tion within a reconstructed landscape as part of a major urban renewal project in
Harlem. Despite some local residents declaring that Hamilton Grange was “ ‘cul-
turally a part of Harlem’ and should remain” in the neighborhood the National
Park Service remained committed to the Hudson River property.15
Using descriptive references like “slum” and “Uncle Tom” to describe the
condition of the property were thinly veiled references to the African American
residents that predominated Harlem’s neighborhoods. Urban unrest in the com-
munity, especially the 1964 Harlem riots, added to the bias against keeping the
building near its original location. In the end, community efforts were successful
in fostering a reconsideration of the site’s removal out of the district, although
controversy still remained about its potential in situ revitalization. This led to
generation of patchwork restoration, preventive maintenance, and additional
planning efforts. In 2008 the building was finally relocated nearby to a more
appropriate parcel within the neighborhood, reopening as a museum in 2011.16
Did Ronald Lee and other nationwide preservation leaders recognize the
irony of their efforts to remove a nationally significant resource from its historic
associations with Harlem, just as the movement was advocating for another
expansion of federal recognition programs in the National Historic Preser-
vation Act of 1966? Clearly, some portions of the preservation community
thought that Harlem was exactly the wrong place for Hamilton Grange, pre-
ferring to reconstruct the estate’s landscape at a new site along the Hudson. Did
racial geography deter the New York financial community from contributing
toward the preservation of the founding father most associated with the busi-
ness community? As an agency, the NPS was constrained by the congressional
6 Introduction

mandate to move the building, just as the resource was confined to an inad-
equate site adjacent to St. Luke’s Episcopal Church. Ironically, in 1966 the
New York Landmarks Commission asserted within five years the preserva-
tion of The Grange would “undoubtedly assume its proper significance” and
foster a revival of scholarly works and “a great surge of popular interest” in
this somewhat forgotten founding father.17 The prediction was correct, only
several decades too soon, as Ron Chernow’s biography was published in 2004
and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s musical adaptation, Hamilton, opened in 2015 to
wide acclaim.

American Landmarks Celebration

Just as the National Park Service was considering the removal of Hamilton
Grange out of Harlem in 1964, its parent agency, the Department of the Inte-
rior, was sponsoring the “American Landmarks Celebration.” Created in part-
nership with the National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) it served as
the United States’ contribution to the United Nations’ International Monuments
Year. President Johnson, invoking the mandate of the 1935 Historic Sites Act,
saw the expanding recognition of historic landmarks as arousing an “awareness
of the acute need for action to safeguard the richness and diversity of American
architectural, historical and natural heritage.”18 Acting as the honorary chair for
the celebration, the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, participated in ceremonies
designating Woodrow Wilson’s Washington, DC residence as a National Historic
Landmark.
African Americans also saw value in such programs and proudly celebrated
the entry of Cedar Hill, the Washington, DC home of the prominent abolitionist
Frederick Douglass as a unit of the National Park System in June 1964. Using
the activist language of the time, Charles W. Thomas noted the “acute need
for militant action” within “persistently aggressive” communities to protect his-
toric properties against the “virtually irresistible encroachments” of urban renewal
and highway expansion. With references to ongoing civil rights struggles, he
continued:

Such landmarks must be preserved for the inspiration of future generations

of a race that is taking increasing pride in its history and developing com-
manding leverage in dramatically remolding the present in accord more
nearly with what the American ideal was originally intended to be. . . .
The American Landmarks Celebration would do well to remind Negroes
and whites who have been eye witness to living history, either as active
participants in or as interested observers of the epochal social revolution
with its exhilarating successes and horrendous tragedies, to single out for
appropriate marking and preservation those sites which have memorably
involved in the revolution.19
 Introduction 7

Here the differences in the language were important: LBJ’s view reflected a
consensus, status quo ensemble that was distrustful of a changing environment,
while the other focused on the social tumult of the time, embracing all types of
change, with recognition of its significance.
At the same time, American historic preservation was undergoing a genera-
tional shift as the leadership who began service prior to World War II when the
museum curator and architect, Fiske Kimball, coined the phrase the “preservation
movement.” Leaders like NPS Director Conrad Wirth, Chief Architect Thomas
Vint, Architectural Historian Charles Peterson, and Chief Historian Ronald Lee,
each with 30-year careers in conservation, were all retired prior to the passage
of the National Historic Preservation Act. New leaders, like the architect Ernest
Connally, architectural historian William Murtagh, and historian Robert Utley,
were central to the implementation of what they called the “New Preservation.”
Guided by a variety of charters and conventions, this new cohort would create
the criteria and practices that would structure the American preservation move-
ment over the next generation.20

Spirit of an Age
Writing to Robin Winks in 1972, Charles Hosmer, the most prolific historian
of the preservation movement, was concerned that his book, The Presence of the
Past, had not accurately captured the motivations and context of the early advo-
cates and their accomplishments. And yet Hosmer concluded that the move-
ment’s continuing story was “itself an excellent representation of the spirit of
an age.” Considering the course of the historic preservation movement over the
quarter-century after the National Historic Preservation Act the New Pres-
ervation reflected the spirit of a generation that transformed the conservation
of historic places. At points along this timeline advocates and decision-takers
stopped to assess the movement—where it had been and where it was going. As
noted by Robert Garvey in 1967, “the act of preservation and the product pre-
served” strongly represented the values that a generation wanted to share with the
future—it says as much about the present as it does about the past.21
As the nation approached the Bicentennial of the American Revolution several
thoughtful individuals looked at the past, present, and future of the historic pres-
ervation movement and its relationship to the new economic, social, and political
context that shaped the mid-1970s. Americans, noted Robin Winks, “wish to
preserve that which they want to remember,” adding that it was “interesting to
look at what is revealed” by these choices. In his analysis of extant National Parks,
Memorials, and Historic Landmarks, Winks found the top three categories of pro-
tected areas to be American Revolution or Civil War battlefields; sites associated
with the shifting frontier of exploration and settlement; and, those connected to
business and industry. Historic preservation had “three serious biases”: it trended
toward the positive and the progressive aspects of past events; those that influenced
8 Introduction

the American experiment in a “visible and dramatic way”; it was bookish, with
an overemphasis on literary and artistic endeavors; and, finally it was inherently
interested in the visible, tangible remains of the past. “In America,” concluded
Winks, “there is a sense of place, of preserving hallowed ground, even though
little remains associated with the events that took place there.”22
The general characteristics of the New Preservation are described in Chap-
ter 1, with an emphasis on how the expansion of the National Register of His-
toric Places to include sites of state and local historical significance transformed
the movement. Despite this mandate, the bureaucratic systems of official memory
were slow to launch, taking a decade to ensconce many of the administrative cri-
teria and conventions. Indeed, the Bicentennial of the American Revolution also
provided the momentum that expanded how many Americans encountered and
embraced their heritage—a change that eventually led to an administrative inter-
regnum that was Heritage Conservation, and Recreation Service (HCRS) and
the substantive amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act in 1980.
As the new perspectives turned 20 during the mid-1980s, there was time for
retrospective and paradigm shifts that might address the challenges of the move-
ment’s encounters with the potpourri of multiculturalism.
The strongest commitment to heritage conservation, as described in Chap-
ter 2, comes when a government incorporates a historic property into a system
of parks and protected areas. Despite goals of developing a “well rounded sys-
tem” of historic sites, the era of the New Preservation began with a paucity of
properties under federal stewardship that recognized anything beyond the domi-
nance of colonialism, warfare, politics, and wealth. Sites associated with George
Washington Carver, Booker T. Washington, and Frederick Douglass became the
foundation for a cornucopia of new properties stitched into the fabric of National
Parks and led to the consideration of a variety of new themes, such as the Under-
ground Railroad, that more completely represented the changing complexion of
the country. In addition, as found in Chapter 3, the stories told (and consciously
omitted) at these sites of heritage conservation contributed to the mis-education
of the American heritage tourist. After the Bicentennial and the phenomena that
was Alex Haley’s Roots, a generation of historic site interpretation was forced to
confront the absence of enslavement and its aftermath at many properties.
The well-curated story—told in Chapter 4—that historic preservation brought
only positive change to older neighborhoods was challenged during the 1970s,
when, despite the creation of the economic engine that was the federal reha-
bilitation tax credit program, many communities were underwent the residential
displacement that came to be known in the 1980s as gentrification. Cities and
towns across the country faced, as in Alexandria, Virginia, the choice between
enhancing their residential tax base by expanding the boundaries of the Old and
Historic District and dispossessing a generation of African American residents in
the Uptown neighborhood who were caught between rehabilitation and transit-
sponsored land speculation. The inherent conflict between historic districts and
 Introduction 9

displacement demonstrated how far segregated sectors of the preservation move-

ment were from the realities of urban America.
Chapter 5 tells the story of how the New Preservation reacted to challenges
by African Americans and other minorities to the status quo elitism that, despite
changes in the language of official memory, seemed to remain characteristic
of the movement. For the generation of practitioners who came of age, or at
least got jobs, during the 1970s, there were opportunities to shape new ways
of viewing the past, categorizing it, and ensuring its recognition and perhaps
conservation. Proposals to modify or adapt the criteria for the National Register
languished, despite evidence that some of the administrative conventions dis-
criminated against the recognition of minority-associated properties.
The conclusion to this volume approaches the concept that heritage conserva-
tion must be considered within the bundle of civil rights that shape American
society and politics. Just as the environmental movement was shaken by the arrival
of Environmental Justice, where was the impact of the modern Civil Rights
movement on American historic preservation? Clearly, one of the lessons that
should have been learned from the racial turmoil of the 1960s was that A ­ frican
American contributions to society had not received full recognition and that
Americans writ large “lacked proper perspective in dealing” the complete nar-
rative of their constitutional experiment.23 And yet, in facing a collection of
“wicked” problems revealed by its expanding impact on American communities,
how did the New Preservation movement address an evolving “catechism of
contradictions” regarding its motivations, its philosophy, and its conventions?24

Notes
1 William T. Martin Riches, The Civil Rights Movement: Struggle and Resistance (New
York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997).
2 Robert R. Garvey, Jr., “Genesis: The Creation of the Historic Preservation Act of
1966,” Remembering the Future, Mary Washington College, 1986, pg. 5.
3 Arthur P. Ziegler, Jr., Historic Preservation in Inner City Areas: A Manual of Practice (Pitts-
burgh: Ober Park Associates, 1974), pg. 31.
4 Robert Kanigel, Eyes on the Street: The Life of Jane Jacobs (New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2016), pp. 221–222.
5 James M. Lindgren, Preserving Historic New England: Preservation, Progressivism, and the
Remaking of Memory (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995); James M. Lindgren,
Preserving the Old Dominion: Historic Preservation and Virginia Traditionalism (Charlottes-
ville: University of Virginia Press, 1993).
6 American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society, Minutes of Board of Trustees,
June 19, 1950 Meeting. NPS Harpers Ferry Center (HFC), Ronald F. Lee Collection
(RFL), American Scenic and Historic Preservation Society File.
7 Director, NPS to Legislative Council, Office of the Solicitor, DOI, March 10, 1961.
NPS Park History Program (PHP) Hamilton Grange (HAGR) Files. Mrs. W. Ran-
dolph Burgess to Sen. Jacob Javits, June 27, 1961. Library of Congress (LOC), David
E. Finley (DEF) Collection Box 50. Mrs. Burgess, a great-great granddaughter of
Hamilton, was shocked the financial community was not interested in saving the
home.
10 Introduction

8 William C. Wing, “Alexander Hamilton Home is Fast Falling into Ruin,” New York
Herald Tribune, February 7, 1960; William C. Wing, “The House that Hamilton Built,”
New York Herald Tribune, February 8, 1960.
9 Other options proposed included moving it 270 miles to Hamilton College in Clinton,
New York; and, acknowledging Hamilton’s role as founder of the Coast Guard, float-
ing the building across New York harbor to a facility on Governor’s Island. Andrew
G. Feil, Jr., and Lawrence B. Coryell, “Area Investigation Report on the Home of
Alexander Hamilton, New York City,” NPS, October 21, 1960, HFC RFL HAGR.
10 “Urge Speedup for Shrine in Harlem,” New Pittsburgh Courier, December 10, 1960.
11 “Week-long ‘Clean-up’ Campaign a Success at Hamilton Grange,” New Pittsburgh Cou-
rier, July 11, 1964. Rep. Rangel would later play an important role in the building’s
successful relocation within Harlem. Ned Kaufman, Place, Race and Story: Essays on the
Past and Future of Historic Preservation (New York: Routledge, 2009), pg. 287.
12 Newton P. Bevin to James Grote Van Derpool, December 4, 1961, HFC RFL HAGR.
Regional Director, Northeast Region to Director, NPS, “Hamilton Grange National
Memorial,” March 19, 1965. HFC RFL HAGR.
13 James Grote Van Derpool, Executive Director, New York City Landmarks Preserva-
tion Commission to NPS Regional Director Ronald F. Lee, June 11, 1965. HFC RFL
HAGR.
14 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “Report on Hamilton Grange,”
May 23, 1966. HFC RFL HAGR. Edgar I. Williams to Max O. Urbahn, “Preserving
an Historic Shrine: Alexander Hamilton’s Home,” May 9, 1967. HFC RFL HAGR.
15 John C. Devlin, “Action Sought on Hamilton Home,” New York Times, October 26,
1966. LOC DEF Box 51. William S. Rosenberg to Director, NPS, “Hamilton Grange
Trip Report,” December 6, 1966. HFC RFL HAGR.
16 Emily M. Bernstein, “Harlem: The Battle to Keep Alexander Hamilton’s Home
Where it is,” NYT, November 7, 1993. Hamilton Grange Update, New York Times,
November 21, 1993. John H. Sprinkle, Jr., Crafting Preservation Criteria: The National
Register of Historic Places and American Historic Preservation (New York: Routledge,
2014), pp. 177–187.
17 New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission, “Report on Hamilton Grange,”
May 23, 1966, HFC RFL HAGR.
18 President Lyndon B. Johnson, Presidential Proclamation #3618, September 23, 1964.
19 Charles Walker Thomas, “American Landmarks Celebration Seeks to Preserve
Nation’s Heritage,” Negro History Bulletin, Vol. 26, No. 1 (October 1964), pp. 23–24.
20 International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites
(The Venice Charter), International Congress of Architects and Technicians of H ­ istoric
Monuments, Venice, 1964.
21 Charles Hosmer to Robin Winks, May 30, 1972 UMD CBH. Robert Garvey, “Look
Back in Anger?” Preservation News, February 1967.
22 Robin Winks, “Conservation in America: National Character as Revealed by Preser-
vation,” in Jane Fawcett, editor, The Future of the Past: Attitudes to Conservation, 1147–
1974 (New York: Watson-Guptill Publications, 1976), pp. 141–149.
23 National Park Service, Feasibility/Suitability Study for a National Museum of Afro-American
History and Culture, Wilberforce, Ohio (Denver: National Park Service, 1978). Report
prepared at the direction of Public Law 94–518, enacted in 1976. NPS concluded that
it was both feasible and suitable to locate the national museum at Wilberforce, Ohio.
24 W.J. Rittel and Melvin M. Webber, “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning,”
Policy Sciences, Vol. 4, No. 2 (June 1973), pp. 155–169. John McWhorter, Woke Racism
(New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2021), pp. 8–10.
1
THE NEW PRESERVATION

Over the course of 1966, three men—an archaeologist, a historian, and an

architectural historian—gathered to devise the organizational structure that
would shape the nature of the New Preservation.1 Mandated by the passage of
the National Historic Preservation Act the traditional goals and conventions of
­American historic preservation would be forever transformed with the creation of a
three-legged administrative stool comprising the National Register of Historic
Places, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, and the State Historic
Preservation Offices. The character of official memory was enhanced with the
expansion of federal recognition beyond only national significance to include the
consideration of places important in state and local history. This chapter charts
the course of the first generation of the New Preservation.

American Historic Preservation Before 1966

Charles Hosmer chronicled the history of American historic preservation in three
volumes. Published in 1964, The Presence of the Past provides a history of the
movement from the 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th century.
Comprising almost 1,300 pages within two volumes, Preservation Comes of Age,
published in 1981, covered only the second quarter of the 20th century.2 Often
overlooked, because of the dominance of the latter work, the first book also pro-
vided a snapshot of historic preservation practice in the early 1960s, just prior to
the transformation wrought by the enactment of the National Historic Preserva-
tion Act of 1966 and the arrival of the New Preservation.3
Through the first quarter of the 20th-century American historic preservation
was, according to Hosmer; a grassroots effort, spontaneously growing as an ama-
teur undertaking, without any formal national leadership. Seeking the material
DOI: 10.4324/9781003314790-2
12 The New Preservation

recognition of cultural exceptionalism, it was a uniquely “American response to

an American need.” Ironically, given the calculated absence of Native Americans
from his narrative, he characterized the activity as an “indigenous movement” as
well as a nostalgic and romantic one.4 As with most social movements, Ameri-
can historic preservation practice reflected the cultural, political, demographic,
and economic trends across the decades of change that characterized the 20th
century. This flexibility was illustrated most succinctly by the changing criteria
used to choose which properties to preserve and which to let go as the American
landscape was remade by industrialization, suburbanization, and the automobile
transportation revolutions.
Prior to the Civil War, the general consensus was that only one property,
the Mount Vernon plantation of George and Martha Washington in Virginia,
was thought worthy of perpetual preservation. Over the next century, the kinds
of places formally enumerated, landmarked with signs, and set aside as house
museums grew as Americans expanded the events and personalities that filled
their history books. An expanding appreciation for the diversity of properties
that illustrated the panorama of the American experience only went so far. For
Hosmer, “preservationism [sic] was an Anglo-Saxon movement” that was without
any “outspoken nativist declarations.”5 However naive this evaluation of the moti-
vations of early preservationists, the conventions and criteria developed on either
side of World War II shaped the nature and number of historic properties handed
down from one generation to the next.
Crafting preservation criteria that expanded the definition of what proper-
ties might be considered historic and how these places might continue their
contribution to a community through adaptive use was a common thread in
the third quarter of the 20th century. Managing the plethora of possible historic
properties, whether considered important for their historical associations or for
their architectural qualities, proved challenging to preservationists, planners, and
politicians.
Soon after Fiske Kimball defined “the preservation movement” in 1941,
archaeological sites (with their challenging aspects of physical integrity) and
examples of exemplary architectural accomplishment (with their potential lack of
historical associations) were added to the continuum of cultural resources consid-
ered within American historic preservation. Federal mandates, found in the His-
toric Sites Act of 1935, to identify, evaluate, and recognize nationally significant
properties resulted in a series of thematic surveys which were designed to present
the full panorama of American history. Initially calculated to march chronologi-
cally through American history, with a focus on exploration, settlement, and
political and military affairs, by the 1960s the examination on new themes, such
as social and humanitarian movements and scientific discoveries and inventions
were undertaken in response to Cold War era trends.6
Chronological limitations on what was, and was not, potentially historic were
reduced from a century to a so-called 50-year rule. In 1946, when Alexandria,
 The New Preservation 13

Virginia, established the third oldest local historic zoning district it adopted a
100-year standard, which evolved into a program where owners of such buildings
could volunteer to have their properties included under the regulatory jurisdic-
tion of the city’s architectural review board. Despite concern regarding the poten-
tial for controversy in evaluating the national significance of properties associated
with the recent past, by the late 1940s, the National Park System Advisory Board
and the National Trust for Historic Preservation had both adopted the two-
generation standard as part of their parallel surveys of historic sites.
Administrative constraints associated with the focus on individual buildings
within urban environments pushed the National Park Service to finally recognize
“historic districts” as a property type in 1965. Facing tremendous threats from
federal programs that supported urban renewal, interstate highways, and subur-
banization, there was a liberalization in the criteria that found expression in the
National Register of Historic Places after 1966.
The traditional patriotic educational goals of American historic preservation
were challenged by the social unrest of the 1960s. Advocates for an expanded role
for the preservation movement continued to believe that exposure to the authen-
tic places where American history happened could “help to cure some of the
social and political ills that were current in the United States.” For many, one func-
tion of old places was as a reminder of the hardships endured by past generations
combined with a nostalgia for “the peace and harmony of an uncomplicated past.”7
At the same time some critics, railed against commercial exploitation through
“historically veneered amusement” and other honky-tonk attractions, suggesting
that their presence diminished the role and authority of authentic historic proper-
ties. One example was the plight of “John Brown’s Fort,” a building used during
the unsuccessful raid on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, in
1859. The building was dismantled and relocated to Chicago as an exhibit for
the 1893 World’s Columbian exposition. Afterwards the structure “wandered” for
decades until it was reconstructed back in Harpers Ferry on the campus of Storer
College in 1909. Extraction of the resource from its original location had cut off
its relationship from the historic events, and its use as a for-profit display dimin-
ished its true value.8 For many traditionalists, the encroachment of the commer-
cial and honky-tonk in the 1950s and 1960s threatened the perceived authenticity
of many places, like Colonial Williamsburg, Mount Vernon, and Gettysburg,
conserved as shrines to a glorified vision of American history. These concerns
would reappear during the Bicentennial.

Nixon’s Legacy
As with the wider conservation movement, the rise of environmentalism along
with the struggle for civil rights hastened the expansion of how preservationists
viewed the world. Charles Hosmer described how the practice shifted from con-
cern for the “isolated museum” to a focus on the “total architectural environment”
14 The New Preservation

or the “historical landscape.”9 This philosophical realignment was encapsulated

within President Nixon’s Executive Order 11593, issued in May 1971 which
called for the “enhancement and protection of the cultural environment” and
inadvertently fostered the rise of the cultural resource management industry after
the Bicentennial.10 Nixon’s impact on the American historic preservation move-
ment was indeed extensive: he laid the foundation for establishing the Historic
Preservation Fund, the historic rehabilitation tax credit program, and the Secre-
tary of the Interior’s Standards for the rehabilitation of historic properties. Charles
Lee, the South Carolina State Historic Preservation Officer, considered the
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford years “surprisingly progressive,” with increased
appropriations, participation by more and more states in the youthful federal
partnership; the activation of surveys for National Register properties; and, the
implementation of “brick and mortar” preservation projects.11
Still suffering from the fiscal hangover that came with the end of Mission 66,
a decade-long billion-dollar investment in the agency that began in the mid-
1950s, the National Park Service leaders who operationalized the mandate of
1966’s National Historic Preservation Act were constrained by the tradition of
park-centered planning.12 Born from a “bewildering array of forces” embracing
the social, cultural, and economic reform found in the environmental movement,
historic preservation was cast as a new policy that would enhance the quality
of the cultural environment.13 This “rehabilitation” of traditional preservation
objectives was undertaken despite the acknowledgment that the New Preserva-
tion was in many ways a continuation of the goals expressed with the Historic
Sites Act of 1935, which helped to establish many of the conventions that were
adopted with the expanded National Register. Indeed, the creation of the Office
of Archaeology and Historic Preservation (OAHP), headed by Dr. Ernest Con-
nally, an architectural historian from the Midwest, approached the ideal for a
separate historic sites division envisioned in the mid-1930s by the consortium of
interests that sponsored the Historic Sites Act. The OAHP:

would be the voice of the NPS. The office, however, would not be simply
another bureaucratic organization administering a program and dispensing
money. The office was to be an “institute” bringing together professionals
who would approach all phases of NPS historic preservation according to
the highest standards and practices of their respective disciplines. OAHP
would be a creative center that would articulate the new preservation phi-
losophy and give guidance and direction to its realization. In its origi-
nal conception OAHP was to combine the best of academia and public
service.14

The goal was twofold: to blend old and new programs into a single organiza-
tion and to embrace historic properties at the national, state, and local levels of
significance, as well as those in public and private ownership. Despite challenges
 The New Preservation 15

from park-centric NPS leaders, the OAHP retained its external mission, as set
forth in E.O. 11593, to establish preservation practices that could serve as models
for other federal agencies, State Historic Preservation Offices, and the stewards of
privately held historic properties.
As portions of the United States erupted in violence and turmoil in 1968,
the National Trust for Historic Preservation celebrated its 20th anniversary.
The 1960s had been a good decade in terms of membership, with an increase
of 300 percent to more than 8,500 members. Its new leader, Gordon Gray, a
North Carolina native who served as the Secretary of the Army under President
Eisenhower, reflected on the changing order, recommending that preservationists
“must learn to help shape events not simply by noisy protests, but by submitting
constructive alternatives, recognizing that change is with us and progress persists.”
No longer could the goal be “simply embalming a building that is dead,” adaptive
use was the “surest way of preserving the grace and continuity of urban living.”15
Indeed, that same year Ernest Connally mused that the federal grants to the states,
if adequately funded, could foster a “humane form of urban renewal.”16 His col-
league, William Murtagh, agreed, asserting that the expanded and authoritative
National Register could be “made an instrument of great good.”17
In certain localities, preservationists worked with the then-available toolkit
to approach Connally’s and Murtagh’s shared vision. Many urban communities
faced Ada Louise Huxtable’s planning paradox, where anything worth doing was
worth doing wrong, such that the only way to “really restore” a neighborhood
was to “try to replace the poor with a more well-to-do population.” In Pitts-
burgh, Pennsylvania, Arthur Zeigler and others adopted an alternative approach
where the objective was a “decent living environment,” equal access to housing
regardless of skin color, and architectural preservation “when appropriate.”18 In
the aftermath of urban tumult, sectors of the preservation movement recognized
that local governments were at the core of considering the social and cultural
values of buildings, streets, neighborhoods, and open spaces.19
The relative modicum of federal funding that directly supported historic pres-
ervation activities must be reconciled with the recognition that the rehabilitation
of historic neighborhoods caused the displacement of existing residents. Federal,
state, and local agencies tried a variety of approaches to reduce the extent of
displacement, with programs like the Neighborhood Housing Service (NHS),
which was first used in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and widely advocated by the
Urban Reinvestment Task Force.20 In the mid-1970 federal agencies still argued
that they were not authorized to spend any funds on the maintenance of buildings
and structures that no longer met their program needs—a stance that threatened
all sorts of resources with demolition by neglect.21 At some agencies, resistance to
compliance with procedures designed to implement Section 106 of the National
Historic Preservation Act remained strong.
The leadership of the National Park Service soon recognized that its programs
would never have the fiscal support found at the Department of Housing and
16 The New Preservation

Urban Development (HUD). Despite a general disregard for supporting historic

preservation activities, HUD’s financial impact was well beyond that of most other
federal agencies. For example, in the first year of its operation, only one percent
of Community Development Block Grants (CBDG) went toward historic pres-
ervation projects, for a total of $15 million, a figure that was three-quarters of the
total funding offered by the National Park Service’s grant programs to the states
and the National Trust for Historic Preservation.22
The mandate to expand and maintain the National Register of Historic Places
provided an opportunity for historic preservation organizations and agencies to
consider a wider range of historic properties. Planning ahead in the early 1970s
the National Trust for Historic Preservation identified urban fabric, along with
rural landscapes, as the most pressing areas for demonstration projects that imple-
mented new approaches to preservation practice. Throughout urban America,
the NTHP recognized that there were “decaying slum neighborhoods with sec-
tions of fine and well-built houses and old commercial and industrial complexes
needing rejuvenation.”23

Bicentennial Momentum
In anticipation of the Bicentennial of the American Revolution, the International
Council of Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) partnered with its United States
National Committee (US/ICOMOS) to prepare a special issue of the journal
Monumentum, with the intent that it would provide an opportunity for appraisal
and reflection on the state of the art of historic preservation in the United States
and to evaluate the impact of the movement. An advocate for the diverse qualities
of urban neighborhoods, William Murtagh, who served as the first Keeper of the
National Register, articulated the duality of historic district designations. First
recognized by community planners in the early 1930s, historic districts helped
evolve the convention that historic sites could only be used as museums into
the idea that rehabilitating multiple properties either maintained or recaptured a
“sense of neighborhood identity.”
From his perspective, John Maass, a Philadelphia historian, the future of
historic preservation comprised several characteristics: a greater variety of struc-
tures would be preserved; there would be a greater emphasis on historic districts;
increasing interest in sites associated with science, technology, and industry; and
an expanding recognition of places associated with ethnic and racial groups.

Historians and preservationists have often viewed the United States largely
in terms of its majority white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) population
group. The myth of America as a “melting pot” of many races and nation-
alities has not worn well; it has become clear that the ethnic and racial
minorities are still distinct, and that they do not wish to be homogenized
into that “melting pot,” a term popularized by a 1908 play written by Israel
Zangwill. Blacks especially have been the forgotten people of American
 The New Preservation 17

FIGURE 1.1 
“Roots” cartoon. “The growing back-to-the-city movement has
received much attention of late. The primary focus has been on mostly
middle-class individuals and families buying up old, deteriorated, and
often abandoned houses. These people deserve to be commended since
most often their attempts to improve the quality of life are undertaken
solely with private resources and despite official indifference. There is
another area, however, that has received little effective attention until
recently. How do we deal with displacement and how do we house the
urban poor? These people, often minorities, live in substandard dwell-
ings and are frequently displaced in renewal efforts. The success to date
of programs in Savannah, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati, while small when
considering the entire deteriorated urban scene, bodes well for the future
and it is hoped that such pioneering efforts can be duplicated elsewhere.
These groups have shown that the goal of a safe and stable neighborhood
that is economically and culturally diverse can be achieved.”
Source: Preservation News, Vol. 17, No. 11, October 1977. This illustration accompanied the editorial
“Building Pride.”
18 The New Preservation

history, with hardly a mention between Emancipation and the emergence

of Martin Luther King 100 years later.24

The American Bicentennial prompted several evaluations of how the new pres-
ervation established in 1966 had adapted to a new appreciation for conservation
within a larger environmental movement.25 As noted in a congressional report:

Today, preservation is not necessarily oriented toward inspiring future gen-

erations by displaying the real or imagined life-styles of our forefathers,
but rather, toward using old and valuable buildings in ways that contribute
to today’s society and its needs. The uses to which a building can be put
depend on imagination and the needs of the individual and place.26

No longer the “sole prerogative of the history major or the architect,” as the
new values of historic preservation became understood and accepted within
American society, it began to attract a greater interest within communities, who
saw its potential to help address broad social and planning issues like tax policy
and financing, crime prevention and city services, housing and school qual-
ity.27 Once valued for their educational and aesthetics alone, old buildings had
become community assets to combat social issues, an approach that was taken
up by a new advocacy voice in 1974 with the establishment of Preservation
Action.28
For some the movement needed a new name, more demonstrative than the
moniker “New Preservation,” one that encompassed all the changes in historic
preservation. Traditionalists felt that the expanded vision of the National Register
had begun to recognize properties that were less than significant. Others posited
that a new term was necessary to uncouple the modern movement, with its con-
cern for the total environment and social issues, from the old movement’s focus
on educational house museums and inspirational battlefields. Here the applicable
language distinguished between “restoration and preservation” versus “adaptive
use and rehabilitation.” While a variety of terms and phrases were put forward, the
key concept was the practice of “conservation” rather than “preservation.” Pres-
ervationists looked toward the past in preserving a property’s character-defining
features, while conservationists saw buildings as assets to be used in the enhance-
ment of a community’s total environment.

The Revolutions of 1976

In many ways, 1976 was the highpoint of historic preservation’s political stand-
ing: President Ford signed the amendments to the National Historic Preservation
Act at a Rose Garden ceremony at the White House attended by every State
Historic Preservation Officer.29 That year, regulations for the National Register
 The New Preservation 19

of Historic Places were finally published, the Advisory Council on Historic Pres-
ervation was administratively extracted from within the National Park Service;
the Historic Preservation Fund was established, and perhaps most significantly,
the rehabilitation tax credit program was created by Congress.
Although the idea for a rehabilitation tax credit program may have begun
during the Nixon administration, more than anyone else, Nellie Longsworth
“got it enacted.”30 For Longsworth, the patriotic context of the American
Bicentennial was an important influence in the creation of the rehabilitation
tax credit. But success required a detailed examination of the program’s fiscal
assumptions: a tax credit program for the rehabilitation of historic properties
played into the traditional elitist perception of the preservation movement, and
discussions of lost revenue exacerbated that challenge. One estimate suggested
that the credit would cost the U.S. Treasury almost $200 million within five
years (the actual impact was only $16 million). Within a decade (1976–1986)
some 16,000 rehabilitation projects were approved, ­valued at $10.5 billion,
which produced some 70,000 housing units, of which 15,000 were dedicated
to low-income and moderate-income i­ ndividuals.31 Longsworth remained con-
vinced that preservation was exactly the right p­ rescription for American social
or economic ills, whether it be an energy crisis, job creation, or low-income
housing. “You name it,” she reflected, “We’ve got it.”32
While Nellie Longsworth was assembling the rehabilitation tax credit pro-
gram, Brown Morton, Gary Hume, and others at the National Park Service
were busy crafting the conventions through which such a program might be exe-
cuted. In order for a property to be eligible for a federal tax credit, there needed
to be some certification that the undertaking was worthy of the fiscal assistance.
With one foot in Section 3 of 1971’s Executive Order 11593 and another in
HUD’s Emergency Home Purchase Program of 1974, the initial guidance was
published in August 1976 as HUD’s “Guidelines for Rehabilitating Old Build-
ings.” Then, soon after President Ford signed the rehabilitation tax credit bill,
the HUD guidelines were transformed in a “fast bureaucratic shuffle” into the
Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.33 Implementation of
the program was initially hampered by inadequate appropriations, where the
National Park Service, having requested 90 staff and $3.2 million, had to make
do with no new positions and only $1 million in additional funding. Within
three years the approach was already having a positive impact on the revitaliza-
tion of cities and towns with more than 50 percent of applicants reporting that
the credit was essential for their undertaking a project. In retrospect, Sally Old-
ham, who worked at the National Park Service during the 1970s, concluded
that the tax program had not influenced the application of the National Register
criteria, but rather it encouraged and accelerated the listing of properties that
otherwise would not have been considered but for the developers seeking the
credits.34
20 The New Preservation

In the spirit of the Bicentennial, the NPS set July 4, 1976 as the deadline for
State Historic Preservation Offices to have hired the professional staff needed to
implement sections of the National Historic Preservation Act.35 Augmented by
the expansion of technical services that came with the rehabilitation tax credit
and the Section 106 consultation process the New Preservation fostered the crea-
tion of graduate school programs to train a generation of practitioners in the lan-
guage of what became known as cultural resource management (CRM), as well as
business enterprises that fulfilled federal agency demands for expertise in history,
archaeology, and architectural history, among other disciplines.

Broadening View
Soon after the Bicentennial, the Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National
Museum of History and Technology, Brooke Hindle, declared that “not long ago
the need arose to face America’s failure to include blacks fairly and equally in
our society.”36 New narratives led to the reevaluation of how objects and places,
as seen from other perspectives. Folk culture, according to Hindle, placed “high
value upon not only the true cross and the true sword of George Washington but
upon the sharecropper’s cabin and manacles of a slave.”37
The administrative framework for this wider perspective was the expansion
of the National Register of Historic Places called for in the National Historic
Preservation Act of 1966. Now that “major and minor sites of all types” might
obtain recognition in the National Register, Charles Hosmer admitted that pres-
ervationists are finding “a great many more treasures” than had been previously
anticipated.38 A new generation of preservation groups was eager to save building
types that had “only recently been recognized as possessing any historic interest
whatsoever.”39 Hosmer concluded, “The historians of the future may discover
that the old buildings their predecessors had ignored will prove to be the most
obvious links with America’s post.”40 With more properties being considered
worthy of historic recognition, there was an increase in the innovative thinking
that put many of these resources to a productive adaptive use.
State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) funding of statewide cultural
resource surveys after the Bicentennial had a variety of impacts on the historic
preservation movement. As recounted by the architectural historian Catherine
Bishir from North Carolina, there was a “sudden explosion in our understanding
of what was significant”; a shift from focusing on the individual, the stylish, or the
unique, to the scruffy, the ordinary and the ensemble of new types of resources.
Influenced by emerging scholarship in urban history, industrial archaeology, and
especially vernacular architecture, this younger generation of surveyors recog-
nized that what they were seeing in the field was often not found in traditional
architectural textbooks, which in turn generated a wider appreciation for the
“popular architecture of our real national history.”41 This revelation of a cornuco-
pia of resources complicated efforts to identify, evaluate, and nominate properties
 The New Preservation 21

for inclusion in the National Register and it encouraged practitioners to find

ways to make these studies relevant and meaningful to the people and communi-
ties who continued to live in the buildings, neighborhoods, and landscapes thus
recognized.
In the late 1970s, architectural historians approached the work of field sur-
veys in a deliberate manner. Reporting on her work in Fleming County, Ken-
tucky, Camille Wells characterized how both contextual and physical significance
influenced the decisions as to which buildings to intensively document. Starting
with only a cursory review of written county history, the project began with a
“transversal” or “windshield” survey of the county and its one principal town,
Flemingsburg. Properties with physical significance included not only “prototyp-
ical structures and rare survivals,” but also common examples and those that had
been significantly altered through time. Contextual significance developed from
a property’s association with historic persons, events, including post-Civil War
hamlets established by formerly enslaved African Americans and the construction
of railroads, as well as the location and function of a structure such as riverside
warehouses. Aware of the subjective nature of such designations as “National
Register eligible,” Wells argued that labels needed to remain “tentative and flex-
ible” in the field and that surveyors had a responsibility to the people who “built
and use” the surveyed structures.42
Because listing on the National Register requires both significance and integ-
rity, the role of architectural history was always important in acknowledging
historic places within communities. As noted by the Georgia SHPO, Elizabeth
Lyon, “establishing a balance between architectural and historical significance can
be complex.” State Review Boards, comprised of volunteers with professional
expertise and interest in historic places, found the designation of less sophisticated
examples of domestic architecture with small town historical associations some-
what more difficult to recommend for National Register listing. The tension
between historical and architectural significance became increasingly complex
when considering historic districts. In addition, the expansion in official recogni-
tion mandated by the National Register made clear the need for comprehensive
surveys that addressed all types of vernacular architecture, not just well-known
named styles. In some ways, the more common or unremarkable the resource,
the harder it was to convince decision-makers of the values represented by these
properties. With its decades of focus on high-style architecture and nationally
significant historic sites, American historic preservation needed a generation or
more of practice to refine its criteria and conventions to recognize and evaluate a
broad range of common resources. “Individually, in groups, and in their settings,”
Lyons concluded, these sites represented “architecture not only as art, but also as
cultural record.”43 Such was the landscape that led to the creation of organizations
like the Vernacular Architecture Forum.
Unfortunately, just as they were getting started, these new approaches to see-
ing and documenting resources were retarded by the decline in SHPO funding
22 The New Preservation

for such work on either side of 1980. At the same time, SHPO staff were reas-
signed to work with the newly minted historic rehabilitation tax credit program,
which, combined with an increasingly bureaucratic National Register nomina-
tion process and an invasive system of state program review by the National Park
Service, substantively reduced the possible impact of an enhanced appreciation
for the broad range of cultural properties. Such burdens discouraged the states
from creating their “own best way of understanding, nominating, and preserving
their own heritage.” Catherine Bishir concluded that “ ‘little by little [the] preoc-
cupation with method, technique and procedure’ gained a ‘subtle dominance over
the whole process’,” so that practitioners became prisoners of their own procedures.44
Noting how it “overwhelmed the energies” of state and federal preservation
agencies, Brown Morton concurred with Bishir’s assessment of the impact of the
rehabilitation tax credit program. Because of the “tremendous public response,”
the tax credit program had unbalanced state programs and its constant adminis-
trative and political maintenance left little time for “building a new dimension
of preservation.” After a decade of its implementation, Morton had grown con-
cerned about the “growing attitude in America of looking at historic buildings as
artifacts, not of American culture, but as objects to be manipulated for profit.”45
Chester Liebs agreed: “Ten years ago,” he recalled in the mid-1980s, “we were
talking about environments, now we’re talking about investments.”46
Like many organizations, the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
took advantage of the Bicentennial to take stock of the federal historic preserva-
tion movement in the United States. Prepared at the request of Senator Henry
­Jackson, the study focused on the administration of the National Register of
Historic Places and other programs hosted by the Department of the Interior. In
part, the report concluded that the National Register was still too young, small,
and slow growing to adequately present the true “nature and extent” of historic
properties in the United States. At the Bicentennial only about 10 percent of the
12,000 properties listed on the National Register represented nationally signifi-
cant events or individuals. “Ranging from the obvious to the unusual,” the list
had grown to include places associated with “a particular ethnic group or cultural
theme.” Preservation advocates noted this inclusiveness and suggested that the cri-
teria were so broad that virtually any type of significant property could be listed.
These same criteria were used by federal agencies to determine if any resources
impacted by their proposed undertakings were eligible for listing—a system that
was “by no means perfect.”47 This seemingly inefficient process of registration
hampered the ability of decision-takers to use the National Register as it was
designed: as a comprehensive planning tool.
By the end of the 1970s, according to some observers, the new wave of
adaptive use was evidence for a widespread social revolution in the United
­
States. A constellation of trends—a skittish economy; an energy crisis; and the
­disruption of Watergate and the Vietnam War—each provided a context in
which the new preservation and its activities were seated: a “second stage of the
 The New Preservation 23

recycling phenomena,” that grew out of the Bicentennial. The National Register
stood at 15,000 listings, of which an untold number had been demolished or
otherwise compromised. Yet, in many cities commercial rehabilitation projects,
like ­Boston’s Quincy Market, which anchored and attracted private sector funds,
were a commercial success, leading to the concern voiced by James Marston Fitch
that too many old buildings were being saved.

Do we, a generation from now, save the moldering burger stand because it
is an artifact, a reminder of how we once lived? The issue is selectivity as
well as reflection of the past simply because it happened.48

Sidebar 1.1 Home Improvement and

Homesteading

In the late 1950s, encouraging do-it-yourself home improvement projects

was seen as one way to “reverse a trend toward neighborhood deteriora-
tion” before it seriously threatened the future of the community.49 The
Federal Housing Administration (FHA) adopted the motto “56—the Year
to Fix” as part of a nationwide campaign against blight known as “Opera-
tion Home Improvement.” Rehabilitation, demolition of unfit housing,
zoning changes to improve neighborhoods, and voluntary home improve-
ment were seen as a deterrent to slum expansion.50 For example, a 63-year-
old home on Field Street, near Dueweke Park in Detroit, Michigan, was
chosen as a demonstration project in 1960 to show how a “dilapidated
home” in a “middle-aged” neighborhood could be brought “up to date and
made livable at a reasonable cost.”51
Located eastward of Cleveland, the Glenville, Ohio community
faced a similar “conservation problem” in that nearly three-quarters
of its housing stock was, at 70 years, old enough to warrant rehabilita-
tion. The area had been predominately a white, middle class and Jew-
ish suburban community until 1950; by 1960 its residents were mostly
African American. Housing conditions had a “special significance”
­
to city planners because it was one of the few neighborhoods where
African A ­ merican residents could move, after having been displaced
by Cleveland’s program of urban renewal.52 Such home improvement
programs were ultimately unsuccessful as Glenville would become the
site of several episodes of urban confrontation and violence throughout
the 1960s.
24 The New Preservation

The idea of do-it-yourself rehabilitation of a historic home caught on

during the 1960s and 1970s.53 Dedicated individuals and families embraced
the concept of “sweat equity,” where a homeowner’s labor made up for
limitations of personal capital, or the availability of loans, in bringing back
blighted historic properties.54 There was, on either side of the Bicentennial,
a recognition that improving the quality of urban neighborhoods required
self-reliance, personal responsibility, and greater cooperation among inter-
ested parties.55 In some communities, city government partnered with
HUD and other federal agencies to provide access to low-cost historic
buildings in destressed communities in order to jump start neighborhood
rebirth. By the end of the 1980s, however, in many localities historic real
estate and rehabilitation work had become so expensive that it was generally
no longer a do-it-yourself endeavor.56

***

Begun in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1973, “homesteading” was an

experimental housing program adopted in several cities across the United
States during the 1970s.57 Essentially an individual was offered the title to
a residential property that had been repossessed by the local government,
provided that the building was rehabilitated to meet local building code,
and the individual resided in the dwelling for a certain period of time.
Homesteading programs were based on the theory that “home ownership
can intervene successfully to reverse the trend of growing abandonment
and blight. Its goal was to recycle vacant, deteriorated, and abandoned
houses that were the product of neighborhood disinvestment.”58 In many
communities, the focus was on federally foreclosed properties that had been
abandoned by their owners. But such efforts were complicated because of
vandalism and arson that often occurred as an unprotected property moved
through the time-consuming processes of foreclosure and homesteading.
As demonstrated by David Rotenstein, experiments in homesteading laid
the foundation for displacement in towns like Decatur, Georgia, where
113 homes were sold as part of homesteading programs from 1975 to
1982.59
As an experiment in urban revitalization, and as an alternative to wide-
scale demolition and clearance, the interest in homesteading declined by
the late 1970s because of the inability to attract potential owners w­ illing
to relocate to targeted neighborhoods.60 Of the 28 properties awarded
in Wilmington, only 3 were successfully occupied, among the estimated
2,000 abandoned properties within the city. Homesteading’s primary
 The New Preservation 25

attractiveness was its emphasis on planting and retaining new homeowners,

thereby increasing the tax base, in areas where tenancy was more common.
Part of its appeal was the idea that such programs could be run by cities
without substantial subsidies to the participants. It was seen by advocates as
an “inexpensive and relatively easy way to achieve the American dream of
home ownership.”61 As such, in most areas it was never successfully adapted
for use by low-income residents: the housing may have been cheap, but the
price of rehabilitation was not.
Homesteading programs survived in Baltimore into the mid-1980s due
to the continuing interest of Mayor William Donald Schaefer, who had
initiated the program in 1973, with a goal of stabilizing neighborhoods and
“attracting working people back to the city from the suburbs.”62 In a dec-
ade of operation, the city converted 600 homes as the inner-city real estate
market regained strength. Many of the successful applicants were single and
middle class, eager for the hands-on challenge of rehabilitation.63 Despite its
appeal on many levels, urban homesteading was never a solution to issues of
displacement of minorities from historic districts.

An Administrative Interregnum
The federal/state partnership that drove the implementation of the National His-
toric Preservation Act of 1966 focused on the owners of historic properties and
encouraged adaptive use of a wide range of buildings. Critics of the new pres-
ervation pointed to the Janus-like responsibilities of the National Park Service
when it came to historic conservation. One idea floated in 1976 by Loretta
Neumann (a former NPS employee who was Congressman John Seiberling’s leg-
islative director) was that the federal government could do a lot more to address
a wide variety of community issues following the philosophy of the new pres-
ervation if only the external or non-park programs could be extradited, like the
Advisory Council, from within the National Park Service. While the New Pres-
ervation envisioned in 1966 was still partially under construction, some thought
to revitalize the act by:

• Crafting a new federal law that combined the policies and provisions found in
the Antiquities Act of 1906, the Historic Sites Act of 1935, and the National
Historic Preservation Act of 1966;
• Recognizing the expanded definition of historic preservation that included
“whole neighborhoods, the quality of the built environment, and the preser-
vation of diversity and the fabric of our cultural heritage”;
26 The New Preservation

• Documenting the expanding role of numerous federal agencies (other than

the National Park Service) in the practice of historic preservation;
• Outlining how the Park Service’s primary mission as a land management oper-
ation had tended to bury its wider responsibilities to support the identification,
evaluation, recognition, and stewardship outside of park boundaries; and,
• Reaffirming the goal to “harmonize the policies of government” so that
historic preservation “aspects of a project or program are given their rightful
status in the decision-making process.”64

Many of these ideas were transformed by the arrival of the Carter Administra-
tion’s National Heritage proposal and the creation of the administrative inter-
regnum known as the Heritage Conservation & Recreation Services (HCRS).
In effect, the 3-year experiment combined the non-land-management opera-
tions of several Interior Department bureaus, with expertise in historic pres-
ervation, land conservation, and outdoor recreation.65 Former NPS Director
Horace Albright, among others, vehemently fought against any proposal that
extracted historic preservation activities from the Park Service.66 Critics within
the traditional preservation community pejoratively called the new organization
“hookers” and suggested that its administrators tried to bend everything to the
objectives of “energy-saving, civil rights, and the spreading of democracy.”67 As
a result, both William Murtagh and Ernest Connally, two founders of the New
Preservation, resigned their positions.68 Michael Tomlan later described HCRS
as a failed “shotgun marriage” among the environmental, land conservation, and
recreation communities.69
While the federal program was in a crisis of its own making, the wider preser-
vation movement was dealing with the challenges of facadism, as illustrated along
Red Lion Row in Washington, DC, and elsewhere, where the vast majority of
a historic building was demolished and only a thin veneer of historic fabric was
conserved to provide the illusion of a historic streetscape. In downtown com-
munities, the impact of declining church membership on the sustainability of
large houses of worship mimicked issues with the continued viability of large
federal downtown office buildings earlier in the decade. At the same time, these
challenges were balanced by the successful creativity of the National Trust’s Main
Street (established 1978) and Barn Again! (1979) programs. Local advocates in
communities like Savannah, Georgia; Galveston, Texas; Alexandria, Virginia; and
Seattle, Washington, provided clear evidence of the social and economic benefits
of historic preservation, while also candidly acknowledging some of its adverse
impacts.70

The 1980 Amendments

If the vision of an integrated conservation agency, absent any land management
responsibilities, was to survive, the Heritage Conservation Recreation Service
 The New Preservation 27

needed a firm legislative foundation. It was not to be. Spearheaded by Rep-

resentative John Seiberling and signed into law during President Carter’s lame
duck period, the 1980 amendments to the National Historic Preservation Act
were transformative in ways large and small. They further enhanced the role of
local communities with the creation of Certified Local Governments (CLGs)
and provided a way for owners of private property to object to listing in the
National Register. Controversy generated in the mid-1970s by the designation
of the Green Springs Historic District in central Virginia led to the addition
of a system of owner notification as part of the federal historic recognition
process. Listing on the National Register was restricted if more than half of
the property owners of record objected—in writing—to the recognition. The
breadth of the amendments meant that the National Register was shuttered for
a year to adopt the necessary regulatory changes.71 Incorporating many of the
provisions of Executive Order 11593, Section 110 was added to the NHPA,
which detailed the responsibilities of federal agencies in the management of
cultural resources.72

Toward an Ethic in the 1980s

At the end of the 1970s, the National Trust brought together the leadership of
the movement once again to Williamsburg, Virginia, for its annual conference,
with the goal of charting a course for the new decade. Presentations described
the continuing evolution and expansion of the practice, its general acceptance
among the public, its diversity of endeavors and its specialization of techniques,
each reflected in a mosaic that characterized the overall character of the social
movement.73
By the late 1970s conservationists and preservationists had come to agree on
a broad definition of the “cultural environment” which reaffirmed the value of
local historical significance. At the same time, some practitioners recognized the
limitations of current terminology and recommended the replacement of the
term “historic district” with the broader “cultural conservation district.” Those
assembled also sought to recognize and define a historic property that included
more than just its physical qualities and to expand the definition to include “such
humanistic concerns as folk, ethnic, and traditional use patterns.” Consideration
of such resources helped to recognize the relationship between the quality of the
built environment and the overall quality of a community as an “articulation of
the value of a sense of time and place as part of our diverse cultural memories.”
No less a traditional authority than James Marston Fitch declared that the term
historic preservation was “functionally obsolete.”74
Such considerations were at the core of identity crisis within the field. Com-
munity revitalization efforts recognized the “protect the integrity of neighbor-
hood cohesion” and prevent overheating of neighborhood property values that
resulted in displacement.75 At the same time, there was the overarching concern
28 The New Preservation

that the preservation movement risked dilution if it was “made to be everything

to everyone.”

Today, the movement has advanced in the area of neighborhood revitaliza-

tion by affecting large numbers of historic buildings in a single area. Thus,
the preservation movement needs to define its role and function in neigh-
borhoods. Is its concern merely the physical fabric, or will it influence
social patterns? Preservation, on the other hand, has a wider emphasis that
goes beyond historic buildings; it includes all aspects of the cultural, social
and physical environments. In some cases, a special ambience or ethnic
quality may be the dominant value of an area, superseding that of architec-
tural presence.76

Most practitioners called for the preservation movement to embrace the neigh-
borhood conservation and environmental movements. And yet, there was a clear
awareness that being forced into urban affairs with all of its inherent problems
presented the movement with numerous difficult challenges.77 Underlying all
such considerations was the question of the private property and private enter-
prise, because, as Roderick French observed: “Who cares for those who will
always have to live in housing owned by someone else, assuming they can find
and afford any decent shelter?”78
Public perception of the movement as elitist continued to hamper change.
Truett Latimer recommended that it should aspire to look more like a Chevy
than a Rolls-Royce.79 Donald Adams agreed: it needed to avoid imagery that
was calculated to appeal to the middle class with restored neighborhoods repre-
senting enchanted communities, like Brigadoon.80 Perennial complaints about
inadequate funding went unanswered because of this perception—in 1977, when
there was a $300 million backlog of preservation projects, Congress appropriated
only $45 to the Historic Preservation Fund.81 “We say, for example, that preserva-
tion is for all,” concluded Louise McAllister Merritt, and yet our appeal is mostly
toward the white and middle class.82 Capturing the nature of the brand, a special
issue on home restoration in February 1986, the cover of Historic Preservation fea-
tured the architect Michael Dunlap, Liz Morrow, and their baby daughter Jessica
at the entrance to their trendy Jacksonville, Florida home, illustrating the “Secrets
of Great Old Neighborhoods.”83
The challenge to some was to prevent the administration of heritage from
becoming yet another program that excelled at paperwork, “guidelines”, and buzz
words, but had lost its way in achieving any goals of substance. Processing National
Register forms and completing Section 106 compliance cases were exercises in
bureaucracy but had little relevance to the everyday problems of many residents
in historic communities. From Denver, Colorado, Barbara Sudler, noted that
the maturing preservation bureaucracy “too easily” slipped into terms of art and
convention, which fell upon deaf ears among those the movement was trying to
 The New Preservation 29

influence, especially in poorer communities where securing basic city services,

like garbage collection, were centered in the minds of the residents.84 Charles
Page argued that what was selected for preservation was often more focused on
academic and architectural fashion while Chester Liebs cautioned that the “social
implications of our jargon” presented unintended perceptions among those not
within the movement.85
At the same time another concept had entered the urban scene: “neighbor-
hood conservation” grew as a phrase and a process that seemed more approach-
able, more relevant, and less jargon laden than traditional historic preservation.
As a grassroots movement, neighborhood conservation was partly a reaction to
the success of the “Back to the City Movement” of the 1960s and 1970s where
properties with architectural distinctiveness within downtowns were rehabilitated
by new residents who had rejected the design sterility of the suburbs. It was seen
as primarily a middle class, do-it-yourself movement, comprising a small segment
of society that had the time, skills, and funding to carry out rehabilitation.
In concert with nationwide trends, the National Register published a series of
articles on the back to the city movement, covering neighborhood reinvestment.
In the early 1970s, the preservation movement eagerly embraced the back-to-
the-city movement where upper and moderate-income people, who had escaped
decaying urban areas by fleeing to the suburbs, returned to more urban environ-
ments. Drawn by an appreciation for downtown amenities and distinctive archi-
tecture, as property values increased, the “shift back to the city snowballed at an
increasing pace.”86
Community organizations that supported low-income residents were distrust-
ful of historic preservation because of its potential impact on the elderly and
minority groups. In addition, local organizations did not consider their com-
munities as historic and did not “see the relevance of preservation” to their
constituents.87 Following this lead, local governments were conflicted about
historic preservation’s impact on community development plans, labeling them
anti-progress and anti-development. At one level, neighborhood conservation
was seen as an appropriate strategy for less architecturally distinctive, or average
neighborhoods. Adapting to the new conventions, in 1978 the National Trust
began distributing the newsletter “Conserve Neighborhoods” to more than 1,500
organizations across the country.88 The organization Partners for Livable Places
published the newsletter “Livability” which brought together a wide range of
approaches to environmental quality in planning, conserving, and developing
urban communities. It focused on increasing the acceptance of “environmental
arts” which included historic preservation and public art, as contributing to eco-
nomic strategies for growth and development.89
The contrast with neighborhood conservation’s goals exposed issues within the
preservation movement. Should preservationists “add to its other objectives the
goal of maintaining neighborhood diversity—a mix of incomes, races, ethnic
groups and ages”?90 Diversity was the keystone for urban advocates, most notably
30 The New Preservation

the iconic Jane Jacobs, but was the movement ready to also advocate for the
whole spectrum of government housing and other programs designed to assist
low-income residents? Such questions were raised during a backlash against the
preservation movement on either side of 1980, while others wondered if historic
preservation was the source of social and economic displacement or was it being
used as a scapegoat to deflect controversy away from much more well-funded and
impactful sources of gentrification.91
Overall, the preservation movement was on more solid ground when it
focused on distinctive property types that had natural constituencies and that were
increasingly threatened with disuse, deterioration, and eventual demolition. Here
the expansion of the National Register aided those who sought to inventory,
evaluate, nominate, and hopefully preserve whole categories of properties. Main
streets, industrial and commercial sites, landscapes, churches and other houses of
worship, maritime resources, movie theatres, banks, breweries, railroad stations,
barns, hotels, post offices, jails and department stores each found advocates who
saw their social and economic values as being worthy of investment and rehabili-
tation for alternative uses.92 According to the National Endowment for the Arts,
across the country there were, for example, some 20,000 disused railroad stations
awaiting potential revitalization.93

Sidebar 1.2 Main Street and Inner City

The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP) responded to the

challenges of the 1970s and 1980s by launching two impactful programs:
Main Street and the Inner-City Ventures Fund. While the Main Street pro-
gram focused on issues facing small towns, the Inner-City Ventures Fund
addressed access to capital in the revitalization of low-income urban neigh-
borhoods in cities.
Inspired by the wide recognition that small-town main streets were
endangered, the Midwest Office of the NTHP launched its Main Street
project in September 1976. In cities and towns across the country, as
businesses fled older downtowns to shopping malls located on highway
bypasses, “fine buildings, often covered in modernized slipcovers, were at
risk and their value not recognized.” As downtown were being left behind,
in most small communities, there were few tools to support activism with
the preservation community. With funding from the National Endowment
for the Arts, three pilot towns were selected among 69 applicants from 10
states: Galesburg, Illinois (population 38,000), Hot Springs, South Dakota
(5,000), and Madison, Indiana (13,000).94
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
those who had a hankering after the Covenant to turn to the loyal
side, which allowed them greater latitude in their games and plays. It
was therefore announced that, in the ensuing week, the pastime of
Robin Hood and Little John (which had not been celebrated in the
beginning of May, the usual time, on account of the disturbances)
should be practised on the playfield, along with the usual helps to
merriment.
Of all the crowds that poured out from the town on that day to see
the spectacle, it is our business only to take notice of a young man
and maiden that tripped along just as it was commencing. They
appeared to be of the first order of the citizens. The maiden was a
lively, interesting little girl, with blue eyes and a fine complexion; her
limbs moulded into the most exact symmetry, and her whole
appearance in the utmost degree fascinating. Her dress was white,
with a sort of scarf or plaid wound round her person, and fastened by
a loop and silver button on the left shoulder. Her flaxen hair, except
a few ringlets which strayed down her neck, was confined by a silken
snood, which, even at that period, was the badge of Scottish maidens.
Her companion was above the middle size, of rather a slender make
and ruddy complexion, with expressive dark eyes, and coal black hair
flowing down, according to the fashion of the royalists, in large and
glossy curls. He was about twenty years of age, and though his figure
was somewhat boyish,—or feminine if you will,—yet the fire of his
eye, the intelligence of his countenance, and the activity of his frame,
confirmed his claims to manhood. Although the young man intended
only to be a spectator of the revels, he was dressed in green, with bow
and arrows, which was the dress of the actors of the play.
As they approached the playfield, now called Gilcomston, the
shouts of the delighted populace were heard, mingled with the
sounds of the pipe, fiddle, and trumpet, the songs of the minstrels,
and the cries of the jugglers. The Abbot and Prior of Bon-Accord (or,
as they were called after the Reformation, Robin Hood and Little
John) had just arrived; and having been greeted by the populace,
were forming a ring for the celebration of the sports, which was
guarded by a body of their archers. We have no need to detail the
performance; suffice it to say, that the piece was intended for a satire
on the Covenanters, they being shown to the lieges under the
semblance of evil spirits, and the royalists of angels of light. Towards
the close of it, the young man whom we have mentioned felt his
sleeve pulled by a person behind him.
“Thou art he whom I seek,” said the person who thus forced
himself on his notice; “and thy name is Basil Rolland.”
“It is,” returned he; “declare your business.”
“Not here. Thou seest we are surrounded by the multitude.
Remove with me to a little distance, for I would hold some secret
converse with thee.”
“That may not be. I came to squire this maiden to the revels, and
may not leave her alone.”
“Suffer the damsel to tarry here for a short space, and follow me to
a little distance.”
“Go with the stranger, Basil,” said she, “and I will remain in the
same spot till you return.”
“Do so then, Mary,” said Basil; “I’ll return anon.”
As they retired to some distance from the crowd, Basil had leisure
to note the appearance of the stranger. From his dress little could be
learned; it was in the extremity of plainness. He had been a man of
uncommon muscular strength, but it seemed much decayed, perhaps
from the struggles of an active life. His eyes were sunk, but retained
their lustre; and premature furrows were on his brow. When he
halted, Basil addressed him:
“Will it please you then, sir, to communicate your tidings?”
“Then I ask thee, Basil Rolland, what dost thou here?”
“Why, grave sir, I’ll answer thy question with another,” said Basil,
laughing at this solemn opening of the conference: “what dost thou
here?”
“My gray hairs, young man, are a testimony unto thee that I come
not here on any light matter.”
“Why then, my foolish face may be a testimony to thee of the
lightness of the cause that brought me hither. Marry! we have at last
got rid of Montrose and his prickeared gang, wherefore we may be
allowed to enjoy ourselves on the prospect of peace.”
“Enjoy thyself!” said he. “And what enjoyment canst thou gain
from these absurd and impious mummeries? They are a sacrifice to
the evil one; a bloody engine of Prelacy to betray the unthinking soul.
Peace! What have ye to do with peace? Have not thy friends been
treacherous as a snare, and unstable as water? Hath not the finger of
Heaven written bitter things against them for their guile and deceit?
Have not their enemies trampled them under foot, and they in whom
they trusted been as a scourge and as a snare unto them? Have they
not been lukewarm in the good cause, regarding the favour of men
more than the will of God? Are they not even now triumphing at the
hurt of Israel, and rejoicing that the pure evangel has been
withdrawn from them? Let them lean on those whom they have
chosen, and well shall it be for them if they can protect them against
the just wrath of the godly.”
“Your words are dark and threatening, old man, but to me they
appear as the ravings of a feverish dreamer. You seem to tell me of
some danger hanging over us; but our enemy’s forces are disbanded,
and in my judgment there is nothing to fear. The town is fortified:
Aboyne, with a strong army, possesses it. So away with these fancies;
and if you have aught to say that concerns me particularly, say on, for
I must return to my sister.”
“Thy sister? Well, Mary Leslie may deserve the name. I am thy
friend, wherefore I am so thou shalt quickly know. Ponder well what
I have said. Remember that the calm often precedes the storm, and
that it is better to take part with the faithful, even in adversity, than
to be the friend of covenant-breaking, soul-seducing prelatists. I will
see thee to-morrow at the booth of Samuel Fairtext at eventide. Meet
me there, and it shall be for thy good. Farewell, mayst thou be
partaker of all covenant blessings.”
So saying, he walked off, and in a short time was lost among the
crowd, leaving Basil at a loss what to make of his insinuations. When
he came up with Mary Leslie, the Skinners, who represented the
royalists, had succeeded in driving the Litsters, who represented the
Covenanters, into a smoky den or booth, which, in a moment after,
took fire, while the whole angelic train joined in a song to the praise
of the Viscount of Aboyne.
He remarked, however, that the spectators were now very
inattentive to the sports. They were drawn together into small knots,
all over the field, in earnest conversation, which, as it became more
general, entirely drowned the iron voices of the performing cherubs.
The spectators began to leave the field in great numbers. Robin
Hood’s body-guard even followed their example, and Little John, by
the same inexplicable spirit of discontent, deserted his friend and
leader. The whisper (as it was at first) was not long in extending to
the spot where Basil and Mary were standing. The cause of the
disturbance may be gathered from the following conversation:—
“Now, the like o’ this I never saw,” said Thomas Chalmers, deacon
of the fleshers. “That deil’s buckie Montrose is to the road again, an’
comin’ wi’ thousands upon thousands to the town. Fient a hoof mair
will I get killed till we be clear o’ him.”
“Weel, weel,” said Jamie Jingle, the bellman, “it’s a gude thing it’s
nae waur. Come wha like, they’ll aye need a bellman.”
“Nae waur, ye clappertongue!” said another. “I wad like to ken
what waur could come? Willna a’ thing we hae be spulzied by thae
rascals,—black be their cast!—an’ wunna there be anither speel at the
Covenant, whilk we hae a’ ta’en an’ unta’en about half-a-dozen o’
times already?”
“Ye’re vera right, Saunders,” said the chief of the tanners; “but for
a’ that, Aboyne may gie him his kail through the reek; and, if the
news be true, there will be a great demand for shoon and belts, whilk
sud be a source o’ comfort, ye ken.”
“What hae I to do wi’ your belts an’ your brogues, Benjie Barkhide?
What hae I to do wi’ them, I say? A murrain on the Covenanters, say
I, and a’ that pertains to them.”
“A curse on the Covenanters an’ prelatemongers baith, conjunctly
and severally!” said another citizen. “I wish the deil would snite his
nose with the hale clanjamphry, though he sud get me to the bet o’
the bargain, for wishing them sae.”
“Wha would hae thought o’ this in the morning?” said Barkhide.
“Weel, lads, I think we sud a gae hame, an’ put as mony o’ our bits o’
things out o’ the way as we can.”
They departed, and this sentiment becoming general, in a short
time the play field was emptied of the revellers.
As Mary and Basil moved homewards with the rest, the latter
evaded the questions put to him concerning the stranger. He saw,
however, a coincidence between his darkly expressed hints and the
events of the day; and while he resolved for the present to keep this
secret, he anxiously wished for the promised interview.
 Chapter II.
The red cross glares on Frazer’s towers,
My love, I dare not stay;
The bugle peals through Lovat’s bowers,
My love, I must away.—Old Ballad.

We shall now conduct the reader to a shop in the Broadgate, over

which appeared in ancient characters,—
Patrick Leslie & Samuel Fairtext.

It is not to be supposed that the street had the same appearance

which it now exhibits; neither are the unsophisticated to imagine
that the shops resembled those of our own times, with lofty roofs,
gigantic windows, mahogany counters, splendid chandeliers, and
elegant gas burners. The windows were not much larger than the
loop-holes of a modern prison; the roof was low and covered with
cobwebs, and the goods exposed for sale were all lying at sixes and
sevens. The forepart of the shop extended about ten feet forward into
the street, and was decorated on the outside with swatches of the
various commodities that were to be sold within. In the back shop,
which was nearly as dark as midnight, were deposited the whole of
the goods, except the specimens just mentioned. In the inmost recess
of these penetralia, was Provost Leslie, with three or four stout
fellows, removing, under his command, the goods in the back shop
or warehouse.
“Saunders,” said the provost, “ye’ll tak awa yon silks an’ velvets,
and put them into the vault i’ the dryest—ay, that’s anither flask
broken, ye careless gowk! I’ll set ye about your business gin ye wunna
tak mair tent. As soon’s you get that barrel awa, ye’ll tak down the
Prayer-Books from that shelf, and put up twa or three dozen o’
Confessions o’ Faith. An’, my little man, ye’ll run up to my lasses, and
tell them to leave a’ their wark an’ come down to grease the sword
blades, for fear that they rust in the cellar, an’ syne tell the same to
Sammy Fairtext’s maidens, an’ bring them a’ wi’ you as fast’s ye can.
—Ay, Basil, are ye there? Troth, gentle or semple, ye maun help’s the
day. You are a canny lad, sae try if ye can collect a’ the trinkets and
the siller cups and spoons, and take them up by to my chamber.—Ye
ne’er-do-weel! ye haverel, Sandie Hackit, what garred you spill the
wine on that web? Ye needna mind it now, ye sorrow; it’s nae worth
puttin’ out o’ Montrose’s way.”
When Basil Rolland returned from executing his commission, the
stranger whom he had seen on the former day was in the shop,
engaged in conversation with Fairtext. The latter bade Basil conduct
him to his house, whether he himself would follow when he had
dispatched some necessary business. When they were seated, the
stranger began—
“Thou hast seen, youth, that the things which I hinted to thee are
in part come to pass. The city is in confusion, the men of war are
discouraged, so that they will assuredly be a prey, and a spoil, and a
derision to their adversaries. What dost thou now intend?”
“What but to join the army of Aboyne, and do battle with my best
blood against these murdering rebels.”
“And what would be thy reward, young man? Thy good sense tells
thee that it is wrong to deprive free-born men of liberty of
conscience. You would fight for your own slavery. Charles is one who
regardeth not covenants. He will reward jugglers and lewd ones,
rather than those who have shed their blood for his wicked house.
But he already totters on his throne, and the day may not be distant
when he himself shall cry for mercy from those whose fathers,
mothers, and children he hath slain. If you are vanquished in the
approaching contest, all with you is lost; if successful, you are
nothing the better, except for upholding a Papistical hierarchy, the
raw project of a godless debauchee. Thy grandfather did battle on the
wrong side, and, after his fall at the battle of Pinkie, the family fell
from its former power, which it has never been able to regain.”
“Let me ask what comfort or reward could I expect by deserting my
friends? The Covenanters have renounced their oath of allegiance,
and have imbrued their hands in their countrymen’s blood. Good can
never follow an enterprise begun by perjury, and continued with
carnage.”
“And did not Charles first deliberately break his oath and the
covenant made with the people? The paction was therefore nullified
by him, and could not bind the other party. If they have shed blood,
their blood has been shed; and it was not till every attempt at
pacification failed that they took up the carnal weapon. And, for
comfort, I have long supported this cause, and I can look back with
greater pleasure to my conduct in this respect than thou canst on the
picture of thy lady love which even now is peeping from thy bosom.”
“It is my mother’s picture,” said Basil, blushing to the eyes.
“Thy mother’s!” said the stranger, while, with an emotion which he
had not yet exhibited, he caught at the picture with such violence as
to break the silken riband with which it was suspended, and,
unconscious of Basil’s presence, riveted his eyes upon it, scanning
the features with the greatest eagerness.
“The same, the same,” said he to himself; “the arched brow and the
feeling eye, the smiling lips and the rosy cheek. But where is the
principle that gave these their value? Where is the life, the soul?”
continued he, kissing the senseless painting. “How inferior was this
once to thy beauty, and how superior now to thy mouldering ashes!
Didst thou appear as the ideal charmer of a flitting dream, or wert
thou indeed the pride of my youth, the light of my eyes, and the
mistress of my heart? Thou wert! thou wert! my sorrows tell it.—
Preserve this picture, young man. Thou never, alas! knewest a
mother’s love—or a father’s affection: the former flame was rudely
quenched, the latter burned unknown to thee.”
“Then you knew my mother?”
“Ay, Basil, I knew her. We ran together in infancy, we danced
together on the braes of Don, and wove each other garlands of the
wild-flowers that grew on its banks. Then we thought this world was
as heaven, while we were as innocent as angels. As we grew up, the
sun, the wood, the rock, was our temple, where we admired the
beauteous novelty of this earth. All was love, and peace, and joy; but
sorrow came, and those sweet dreams have vanished.”
During these unexpected communications, Basil felt himself
strangely agitated. The old man seemed to know his history, and with
a mixture of doubt and anxiety he inquired if he knew his father.
“I am thy father,” said the stranger, weeping, and throwing himself
into his arms; “I am thy parent, thy joyous, sorrowing parent. How
often have I wished for this day! It is now come, and thou art all that
I could wish—except in one thing, and that is not thy fault. I have
claimed thee at a time when the boy must act the man, and take part
boldly in the great struggle. We must depart from this place to-night.
The citizens, thou knowest, are summoned to join the royalists under
pain of death, so that we may be delayed if we tarry longer.”
“But whither, my father, shall we go?” said Basil.
“Where but to the persecuted remnant that are even now
struggling for freedom. We will fight under the banner of the
Covenant.”
“I have now found a father,” said Basil, “and his commands I must
and will obey; but you will not bid me lift the sword when every
stroke must fall upon an acquaintance or a schoolmate?”
Isaac Rolland then began to mention to his son the reasons which
induced him to join this party. He had no more of enthusiasm than it
becomes one to have who knows he is embarked in a good cause. He
mentioned his own early history, which we shall blend with that of
his son. He had been one of the mission, headed by Sir Thomas
Menzies, that visited King James in 1620 on civil business. About
eighteen months before, he had lost a loving and beloved wife, with
whom he had been acquainted from early infancy. She died on the
birth of Basil. After this affliction, Isaac Rolland could find no
pleasure in the place of his nativity, where everything reminded him
of some dear departed joy; wherefore, having interest to obtain a
situation at court, he left his only son Basil under the guardianship of
his friend Fairtext, and contented himself by hearing often about
him, without ever visiting him till the time at which this story
commences. Rolland was acquainted partially with the
circumstances of his birth. He knew that his mother died when she
gave him life; he knew also that his father existed, but nothing
farther. Isaac laid before his son, in a clear and methodic manner,
the reasons for which the Covenanters took up arms, the
reasonableness of their demands, and the tyranny of their enemies.
He neither palliated nor denied the excesses of either party, but
contended that these should teach all to use their superiority
mercifully. The forcible point of view in which he set his arguments
wrought instant conviction in Basil’s mind, which his father
observing,—
 “Come, then,” said he, “and let us prepare for this struggle. If we
be successful (and shall we not be so in such a cause?), we shall have
the consolation of having given peace and freedom to the land. I have
a sufficiency of world’s goods, and thou and thy Mary—nay, start not,
I know all—thou and thy Mary will be the support and comfort of my
old age, and the subject of my last prayer, as ye have been of many,
many in the days bygone. Bid your friends farewell, and an hour
hence we meet to part no more. Be cautious, however, my son, for
these men of Belial have set a guard on the city, and death is the lot
of all who seem about to leave it. Farewell! God bless thee, my dear
son;” and he again folded him in his arms.
When Basil was left to himself, it would have been difficult to say
whether he was more sorrowful or joyful. He had found his father, a
fond and doting father; but his heart revolted at turning his back on
the scenes of his youth and the smiling face of his Mary. The latter
was the more distressing. She had listened to his suit, and the good-
natured provost, when acquainted with it, had sworn that no other
should marry his Mary. His own father seemed to approve his
passion; wherefore he resolved to bid her farewell, and moved
accordingly to the provost’s house.
She was alone, and received him with her usual smile of joy, but
was startled at the unusual expression of sorrow on his countenance.
“Mary,” said he; but his lips could articulate nothing farther.
She became alarmed. “Basil, you are ill!” said she.
He seized her hand. “Mary, I am come to bid you farewell—
perhaps a long farewell.”
She became pale in her turn, and asked him to explain himself. He
resumed,—
“When we were young, Mary, you were my only companion, and I
yours. You were unhappy when away from Basil Rolland, and I when
absent from Mary Leslie. When, in the folly of play, I had girded
myself with your father’s sword, you complained to him, while the
tears ran down your cheeks, that brother Basil was leaving you to
become a soldier. Such things at the time are trifling; but how often
are they the types of blessed love in riper years. I am now to leave
you to mingle in scenes of strife: let me carry with me the
consciousness of your continued love; confirm to me the troth that
you have plighted, and, come life or death, I shall be happy.”
“But why, O Basil, why are you leaving us? Have we not more need
of thy presence than ever?”
“I have found my father, and by his command I leave you this very
night.”
“This night!” said she, while the tears coursed in torrents down her
pale cheek. Basil caught her in his arms, and they wept together who
had never known sorrow before.
“Be comforted, Mary,” said Basil at length; “we shall meet again,
and the present sorrow will enhance the gladness of the meeting. My
happiness depends entirely on you, and my father looks fondly to our
union.”
“Oh! when you are gone far from this, you will soon forget the
vows that you have made. I have no mother to guide me; oh, do not
then deceive me, Basil.”
“I swear that my heart never owned the influence of another, and
that its last beat shall be true to you.”
“Then,” said she, throwing herself into his arms, “I am happy!”
Basil hastily explained to her what he knew of his destination, and,
with a chaste kiss of mutual transport, they separated.
He acquainted no other person with his intention of departing, but
returned to make some preparations for his journey. These were
soon completed; he was joined by his father, and leaving the town at
sunset, they walked leisurely to Stonehaven, where Montrose’s army
was encamped.
 Chapter III.
See how he clears the points o’ faith.—Burns.

Hamlet. Hold you the watch to-night?

Horatio. We do, my lord.—Shakspeare.

Day was dawning as our travellers reached the camp of the

Covenanters. They rested for some time to partake of victuals, which
their journey rendered necessary. Isaac Rolland then judged it
proper to present his son to Montrose, and accordingly conducted
him to Dunottar, where the general then was. They were admitted to
his presence.
“I expected you sooner, Rolland,” said Montrose. “What
intelligence have you gathered?”
“The enemy are preparing to take the field with a numerous and
well-appointed force, and I have gathered, from a sure source, that it
is their intention to attack our forces as soon as some needful
supplies are received from the north.”
“How do the citizens stand affected?”
“Almost to a man they have joined Aboyne. They have fortified the
city and the bridge, and are determined to hold out to the last.”
“The ungrateful truce-breaking slaves!” said Montrose. “But
vengeance is at hand. Who is this young man whom thou hast
brought with thee?”
“My son,” said Isaac, “whom grace hath inclined to take part with
us.”
“A youth of gallant bearing! Young man, thy father’s faithfulness is
a warrant for thine. Let thy fidelity equal thy reputed spirit, and thou
shalt not lack the encouragement due to thy deserts. You may both
retire to rest, and I will apprise you of the duties required of you.”
They saluted the general, and retired.
A foraging party returned with a report that Aboyne was already
on his march. This was found to be incorrect by some scouts who had
been dispatched that evening to gather what information they could
about the enemy’s motions. They brought the intelligence, however,
that Aboyne’s equipments were completed, and that it was the
popular belief that he would march immediately to meet the
Covenanters. Preparations were accordingly made for immediate
marching. Numerous foraging parties scoured the adjacent country
for provisions, and horses for transporting the baggage and
ammunition. According to the custom of the Congregation, when
about to engage in warfare, the next day was appointed for a general
fast throughout the host.
There perhaps never was assembled any body for the purposes of
religious worship that exhibited such an appearance of romantic
sublimity as the Covenanters did on such occasions. At the present
time they were assembled under the blue canopy of heaven, in a
hollow valley betwixt two mountains, the summits of which were
planted with sentinels, to give notice to the main body of any
interruption. Upon the declivity of one of the mountains was erected
a wooden pulpit, before which was assembled the army, to the
number of about 2000 men. A dead stillness prevailed among them,
while the preacher, a man richly endowed with that nervous and fiery
eloquence which was the most effectual with men in their situation,
explained to them a passage from the fifteenth chapter of Second
Samuel:—“Thus saith the Lord of hosts, I remember that which
Amalek did to Israel, how he laid wait for him in the way, when he
came up from Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy
all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” This
passage he applied to the condition of the Covenanters. He described
the sufferings and grievances of the persecuted kirk, and showed that
the Almighty did not disregard these, but, in His own time, would
avenge the blood of His saints. He told them that God was now
calling on all who were on His side to fight for the good of the land,
and that His soul could have no pleasure in those who drew back
from the approaching contest. “And now,” said he, while the fire
flashed from his eyes, as with prophetic ardour, which was answered
by a corresponding enthusiasm in his hearers; “and now the men of
Babylon have set up an image of gold, even a molten image, and they
say, ‘Fall down and worship the image that we have set up;’ and they
have fenced themselves with trenched cities, and they have
encompassed themselves with spears, and a multitude of horsemen
and slingers, and archers, and they say unto this help from Egypt,
‘This shall be for a deliverance unto us.’ But fear not ye the multitude
of their strong ones, neither be dismayed at the neighing of their
horses; for the Lord of hosts is on our side, and His right hand shall
work valiantly for us. He breaketh the iron weapon, and burneth the
chariot in the fire. He laugheth at the bow of steel and the rattling of
the quiver. Walled cities are no defence against His hand, nor the
place of strength, when His thunder muttereth in the sky. Wherefore,
gird up your loins to fight the battles of the Lord. Smite the
Amalekites from Dan even unto Beersheba. Destroy the lines of their
tents, and their choice young men, that the reproach may be
removed from the camp of Israel. Turn not aside from the sacrifice
like the faint-hearted Saul, but smite them till they be utterly
consumed, and their name become a hissing, and an abomination,
and a by-word upon the earth. Think on your children, and your
children’s children, from age to age, who shall hold your name in
everlasting remembrance, and look to the reward of Him who sitteth
between the cherubim, who hath said, that whosoever layeth down
his life for My sake shall find it.
“The days are now come when the father shall deliver up the son to
death, and the son the father; when the brother shall be divided
against the sister, and the sister against the mother. But the days of
Zion’s peace shall also come, when all the princes of the earth shall
bow down before her, and call her the fairest among women.
(Canticles, sixth and first.) The house of the Lord shall be established
on the tops of the mountains. The New Jerusalem shall appear as a
bride adorned for her husband. (Revelations, twenty-first and
second.) The tabernacle of God shall be with men, and He will dwell
with them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be
with them, and be their God; and God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
sighing, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things
shall have passed away. Go forth, then, to the battle. Quit yourselves
like men. Be strong. Look to those ancient worthies who, through
faith, subdued kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, waxed valiant
in fight, turned to flight the armies of the alien. Fear not their
multitude nor their fury, for he that is with you is greater than your
enemies. Think on the persecuted state of Zion, and may the God of
battles be for a buckler and a defence unto you!”
 A hum of approbation ran along the lines of the Covenanters at the
conclusion of this discourse, while the preacher called upon them to
join with him in praising the Almighty. The part chosen was that
eloquent passage of the eightieth psalm, where the Israelites are
spoken of under the similitude of a vine.
As the last note of this hymn ascended in solemn strains to the
lofty heaven, several of the scouts made their appearance, with jaded
horses, bringing the news that Aboyne was already on his march, and
approaching rapidly to Stonehaven. Orders were immediately given
to the army of the Covenanters to set out on their journey. These
were promptly obeyed, and, in a few hours, the armies met at Megray
Hill. This was announced to the Covenanters by their advanced
guard being driven back by the royalists. It was not, however,
Aboyne’s intention to hazard a general engagement, as his soldiers
were wearied by the march. But Montrose, dispatching a strong band
of infantry, supported by a detachment of cavalry, broke upon them
suddenly both in flank and rear, involved them in the greatest
confusion, and forced them to seek Aberdeen by a rapid flight, after
leaving a considerable number dead on the field. Montrose pursued
them, with the greatest possible dispatch, to Aberdeen, where they
made a stand. The Bridge of Dee was fortified in a very strong
manner, and protected by four field-pieces and a strong guard of the
citizens. Montrose made several attempts at forcing it, but was
vigorously repulsed by the defenders, who poured in a shower of
missiles with effect on the assailants, while they themselves were so
sheltered by their breastworks that they received little injury.
Montrose was obliged, therefore, to draw off his forces, and, as it was
evening, gave up the thought of any farther attack. Having found a
convenient place, he pitched his camp about a mile from the bridge,
and stationed his sentinels on the little eminences in its
neighbourhood, while those of Aboyne were planted on both sides of
the river for a considerable distance above and below the bridge.
Both armies, fatigued with the exertions of the day, availed
themselves of the repose offered by their situation, and in a short
time the busy hum of both camps was changed into stillness.
Our hero had accompanied the army during the march, with that
wonder and admiration which youthful minds feel in such spirit-
stirring scenes. The strictness of the military duty, the contempt of
danger, the degree of subordination and regularity that prevailed (for
the abilities of Montrose prevented that ruinous confusion which the
camp of the Covenanters too often exhibited), and the promptness
and patience with which the necessary commands were executed
made an impression on the mind of Basil strongly in favour of his
military life. The general, at the commencement of the march,
ordered him to be near his person, and by means, as the Covenanters
would have said, of a “soul-searching” conversation, contrived to get
a clear view of his character and worth. The opinion that he made up
was in favour of Basil, and he scrupled not to give him more direct
assurances of his favour than he had hitherto done. The honours that
had been paid him by this distinguished statesman and general gave
rise to a new train of ideas in his mind; and, as the army was
preparing for the night’s repose, he was charging the enemy at the
head of his own troops, succouring the distressed damsel, and
hurling unheard-of destruction on his foes. But the mightiest
conquerors have often found themselves conquered when they least
expected it; and, as the valiant Don Quixote felt his very soul
withering when thinking on the absence of his Dulcinea, so our hero
regarded the short time that he had been separated from his Mary to
be an age. An ugly river and a hostile army lay between him and his
love. If Leander swam across the Hellespont, surely he might cross
the Dee, and trust the rest to his prudence and good fortune.
His father was engaged with the general; so out he wandered, and,
by his correct local knowledge, succeeded in passing the various
sentinels, and getting to the banks of the river, a little below the
rocks called the Craig-lug, where he had the fortune to find a small
fishing-boat (for, so far back as the year 1290, Aberdeen is celebrated
in history for its salmon-fishings). He easily rowed himself across the
river, and, fastening the boat on the northern bank, stole along the
water’s edge, and entered that part of the town which, as fronting the
harbour, was not walled. He directed his course to the Broadgate,
and, as there were still several stragglers in the street, ensconced
himself behind a projecting shop till all should be quiet.
When he left the camp, the night was calm and serene. The breeze
that floated by was unable to curl the surface of the river, and the
moonbeams were dancing in silvery circles on the placid waters as
they gurgled by. But this was not of long continuance. The
atmosphere became quickly loaded with clouds, the moon was
obscured, the rain fell in torrents, and the sullen howling of the east
wind, with the hollow muttering of the thunder, indicated one of
those storms which not unfrequently disturb the beauty of summer.
Basil wrapped his cloak the closer around him, and hastened to the
provost’s house. All in it was dark and still. He knocked; but no one
returned an answer. Astonished at this, he endeavoured to open the
door, but it resisted his efforts. Being acquainted with all the
intricacies of the provost’s domicile, he gained admission by a
window, but found the house deserted of its inhabitants and stripped
of its furniture. Mary Leslie’s apartment was then the object of his
search. It was also desolate. Her lute, her books, and her landscapes
were all removed. In groping through the room, his hand fell on a
small picture, which the next flash of lightning discovered to be her
miniature. He pressed it to his lips and hid it in his bosom, regarding
it, as the holy man did the prophetic mantle, as the last unexpected
memorial of a lost friend. It would be vain to attempt to describe his
amazement at these appearances. He trembled for his friends, when
he knew the deeds of violence that were daily practised in these
perilous times. He determined to arouse the neighbourhood—to
search for, pursue, and destroy in one breath, all who had been any
way concerned in this outrage. Reason, however, came to his aid, and
he saw the utter uselessness of his attempting such a thing, except by
the assistance that he could obtain from the Covenanters. He
therefore turned sorrowfully to retrace his steps, which, from the
darkness of the night and the violence of the storm, was not an easy
matter. Having rowed himself across the river by the little boat, he
was making a circuit to reach the camp, when he saw a light at a
small distance from the landing-place. It proceeded from a hut that
was built at the foot of the rock for the accommodation of the
fishermen. Curious to know who were in it at this untimely hour, he
pressed forward, and listened to the following dialogue:—
“Ay! an’ will ye tell me that the possession of Joash, the Abiezrite,
wasna in Ophrah? But it’s just like a’ your fouk; ye ken naething
about the Scriptures, but daze yourselves wi’ that ill-mumbled mass,
the prayer-beuk. But your yill’s very gude, and far better than what
we have.”
 “I doubtna, my lad,” said another voice; “your fouk are sae stocked,
I daresay Montrose is gaun to mak you a’ Nazarenes, for he gies you
neither wine nor strong drink.”
“Dinna speak lightly o’ the Scriptures, Sawnie Hackit; ye’re just a
blaspheming Shemei, or a time-serving Balaam.”
“Hout,” said Hackit, “gie’s nane o’ your foul-mou’d misca’ings. I
wunner what the deil garred you turn a Covenanter, Tammas
Granehard, for ye usedna to be that fond o’ covenants, unless it was
ane for a fou pint stoup at Jamie Jinks’ hostelry.”
“I wasna aye i’ the right way, Sandie, muckle to my shame; but
better late mend than never do weel; an’ I’m thinking it would be
better for you if ye would come wi’ us, for your fouk can never stand
ours, and, instead o’ getting share o’ the spuilzie, ye’ll maybe get but
a weel-clawed crown.”
“I doubtna but ye’re very right, Tammas; but what would come o’
my ten achisons ilka day, forby the jibble o’ drink, an’ my place at
Provost Leslie’s?”
“I’m doubtin’ your place there’ll no’ be worth muckle, if we tak the
town. The provost isna a man to be passed over, wha can sae weel
afford to pay for’s idolatry.”
“Did ye ever hear,” said Hackit, “o him ever losing ony thing when
the whigs had the town one day and the royalists the next?”
“Weel, Sandie,” said the other, “I canna just charge my memory wi’
ony thing o’ the kind; and gif it wasna, it was that God-fearing man,
Samuel Fairtext, that saved him.”
“Ay,” said Hackit; “and, when the royalists were here, it was the
jolly old cavalier that saved Fairtext. Troth, it’s the only wiselike
partnership that I ken o’ at present; for, if they had been baith whigs
or baith royalists, they would have been ruined out o’ house and ha’
ere this time. But, ye see, when the royalists were in the town,
Fairtext kept himself quiet, and they wadna meddle wi’ him on
Provost Leslie’s account. And now a’ the gudes are removed, an’ put
under Fairtext’s care; sae that the Covenanters wudna tak the value
of a shoe-tie frae him, for he can pray and grane as weel as ony o’
them. The provost and his dochter have left their ain house, and are
to dwell wi’ Fairtext till the danger be ower.”
 By the latter part of this conversation, Basil felt as if the imaginary
weight of sorrow were removed from his bosom; but, instead of it, his
arms were pinioned on a sudden, by a strong physical force, so
firmly, that he was unable to move himself round to discover the
occasion of this unceremonious embrace.
“Come here, ye dotterels!” said a strong voice; “ye sit there, gabbin’
an’ drinkin’ awa, nae caring wha may be hearing you. An’ you, my
birkie, will better be as quiet ’s you can, or, deil tak me,—an’ I’m no
used to swear,—but I’ll scour my durk atween the ribs o’ ye.”
A couple of men now came out of the hut and assisted in dragging
Basil into it. As soon as they had forced him in, the person who had
first seized him quitted his hold, exclaiming, “Eh, sirs! is that you?”
Hackit also let him go, and Basil was able to look around him. There
was neither chair nor table in the booth, but turf seats around the
walls, plentifully littered with straw. A candle, fixed in the neck of an
empty bottle, illuminated the place, and revealed a goodly quantity of
bottles, with two or three horn drinking-cups on the floor, by which
it appeared that the party had been engaged in a debauch.
Thomas Granehard still kept his hold, and, in a stern voice,
demanded what he was?
“What the deil’s your business wi’ that?” said Hackit. “I ken him,
an’ that’s eneuch.”
“But I am strong in spirit,” muttered the Covenanter.
“The toom bottles testify that, to a certainty, Tammas,” said the
other. “But, never mind; get anither stoup, Geordie, an’ sit down,
Master Basil.”
“Blithely,” said Geordie; “and troth, Master Rolland, I didna ken it
was you, or I wudna hae handled you sae roughly. But sit down, for
it’s a coarse night.”
“I may not,” said Basil. “I must to the camp. But why do I find you
here?”
“Ou,” said Hackit, “ye see Geordie and me belangs to Aboyne, for
the provost sent a’ his servants to him. We’re upon the watch the
night, ye maun ken. But wha, i’ the name of the seventy disciples,
could stand thereout in a night like this? Sae we made up to the
Covenanters’ warders, and met in wi’ Tammas there, an auld
acquaintance; and we thought it best to come here and keep
ourselves warm wi’ sic liquor as we could get, and let the camps
watch themselves.”
“Do you know that you all expose yourselves to death for this
frolic?”
“There gang twa words to that bargain. We’ve done a’ that could be
reasonably expected,—we watched till the storm came.”
“Well, you are not accountable to me; I must depart.”
“Weel, a gude evening to you. But stop!—now that I mind—ye
maun gie me the pass-word.”
“The pass-word!” said Basil, in a tone of surprise.
“Ay, the pass-word! Ye see, Sergeant Clinker says to me, ‘Now,
Saunders, if ony ane comes to you that canna say Balgownie, ye’re to
keep him and bring him to me.’ Sae, for as weel’s I like you, Master
Basil, ye canna pass without it.”
“Balgownie, then,” said Basil laughing.
Hackit turned on his heel, saying it was “vera satisfactory,” when
Granehard remembered that he had got a similar injunction;
wherefore, making shift to steady himself a little by leaning on his
arquebuss, he delivered himself thus:—
“Beloved brethren,—I mean young man,—I, even I, have also
received a commandment from ancient Snuffgrace, saying, ‘Thou
shalt abstain from wine and strong drink; and whosoever cometh
unto thee that cannot give the pass, Tiglathpeleser, thou shalt by no
means allow him to escape, otherwise thou shalt be hanged on a tree,
as was the bloody Haman, the son of Hammedatha, the Agagite.’
Wherefore, now, repeat unto me the word—the light of the moon is
darkened—another cup, Sandie—woe to the Man of Sin—a fearsome
barking—dumb dogs—Malachi——” And he sank down in a state of
complete and helpless intoxication.
Basil earnestly advised Hackit and his companions to return
immediately to their posts, and retraced his steps to the camp, as the
reader may judge, not excessively gratified with the issue of the
night’s adventure.
 Chapter IV.
With forkis and flales they lait grit flappis,
And flang togedder lyk freggis,
With bougars of barnis they best blew kappis,
Quhyle they of bernis made briggis;
The reird rais rudelie with the rappis,
Quhen rungis were layd on riggis,
The wyffis cam furth with cryis and clappis,
‘Lo! quhair my lyking liggis,’
Quo they;
At Christis Kirk on the Grene that day.—King James I.

Basil was dreaming about Mary Leslie when he was awakened by

the dreadful note of preparation. The bugles were sounding, men and
horses hurrying to and fro, and a body of Cameronians—or “hill-
fouk”—had formed themselves into a conventicle beside his tent, and
were listening with the greatest attention to a favourite preacher.
When he came out, the scene was beyond measure animating. There
was no trace of the late storm, and the little birds sang their
accustomed songs. All was bustle, both in the camp of the
Covenanters and that of the royalists. The latter were repairing the
fortifications of the bridge, which had suffered in the last night’s
attack. The royalists were already under arms, but Montrose had no
design of attacking them, till the ebbing of the tide should render the
lower fords passable in case he should be unable to force the bridge.
The Covenanters remained idle during the forenoon, while the
royalists stood in order of battle, uncertain as to the time of attack.
About two in the afternoon, the shrill sound of a bugle collected
the Covenanters to their standards; and Aboyne’s sentinels, who till
now had kept on the south bank of the river, fell back to the main
body. Our hero was ordered by Montrose to lead a body of horsemen
to the lower ford, to remain there till informed of the bridge’s being
taken, when he was to push to the town and guard Aboyne’s house
from being plundered, and seize on all papers that might be found in
it. He departed accordingly.