Want to know how detailed the new Images of America: Waynesboro book is on the history of the River City? Coauthor Cortney Skinner wasn’t satisfied with just doing a sketch of the 18th century Tees Tavern that is looked at as the founding structure in what later became Waynesboro. No, Skinner came across an account that described the location of the tavern being 200 paces from the ford of the South River, then went to the trouble of trying to identify the ford and walked off the 200 paces to place the tavern in today’s Constitution Park.
“I wanted to get a sense of what its authentic backdrop might have been,” said Skinner, who produced the book with local writer Elizabeth Massie.
The project had Skinner and Massie delving deep into the stacks at the Waynesboro Public Library and the archives at the Waynesboro Heritage Museum looking through newspaper microfiche and photo collections and whatever else they could get their hands on of historic value.
“The hardest thing was to decide what not to include,” Skinner said.
“One of the things I mentioned in the acknowledgements is once you start digging, there’s enough history in a small town to fill volumes and volumes,” Massie said. “We had a limit. We had a picture-count limit and a page-count limit and a word-count limit and a time limit. So what we have is a good sampling,” Massie said.
More information about Images of America: Waynesboro, including how to order a copy, is at http://imagesofamericawaynesboro.blogspot.com.
– Story by Chris Graham
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