Dr. Isambard Jackson presided over The Poplars during the Civil War, when it was commandeered as a Field Hospital by the Confederacy. His letters to his sister, Maria, contain two brief references to Clarissa Lowell, a volunteer nurse who vanished in the spring of 1864, during one of the most brutal months of the entire […]
Category: History
HISTORY: Gilbey & Sons Photographers, Part 1
Aloysius Gilbey, gentleman scientist, was a contemporary of Edgar Forbs, although he was educated overseas, in Germany. The two men shared an interest in chemistry, although Aloysius was concerned that his friend focused on the esoteric rather than the scientific. Throughout the 1840s they visited one another regularly, sharing their thoughts on the latest papers […]
HISTORY: Raffney’s Oak
When Thomas Forbs arrived in the valley that was to become The Poplars, in the late 16th century, the only area that wasn’t thick forest was the clearing surrounding the Well. It took Forbs and his people many years to clear the area of trees and start planting their own crops, thus evolving from hunter-gathers […]