Voting begins August 1 for the Reynolds Homestead during the Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts program and show your support for your favorite historic house in Patrick County.
This campaign from the Virginia Association of Museums (VAM) is designed to create awareness of the importance of preserving artifacts in the care of museums, libraries, archives and historic houses throughout Virginia, and we’re taking part.
Collecting institutions from across Virginia have nominated items that they believe tell a significant story and deserve to be recognized on this prestigious “Top 10 List.” These items may be ones that are currently being conserved, have a conservation plan, or are simply in need of conservation.
The campaign showcases the importance of Virginia’s diverse history, heritage, and culture, and the role that artifacts play in telling those stories.
Reynolds Homestead has nominated Hardin Reynolds’s business trunk in this competition and it needs help from the public. Please show support by voting during the month of August for the nominated item by visiting www.vatop10artifacts.org. Nominations will be reviewed by an independent panel of collections and conservation experts, and Top 10 honorees, as well as a “People’s Choice” honoree, will be announced in September, just ahead of October’s National Arts and Humanities Month.
The public voting will be considered by the panel as they make their final selections. “Conservation is a vital component of our mission, and Virginia’s Top 10 campaign offers an interactive opportunity for supporters of Reynolds Homestead to become engaged in bringing the importance of this mission into the public spotlight,” said Lisa Martin, senior program manager.
In her dedication speech on the opening day of the Reynolds Homestead, Nancy Susan Reynolds explained the value of this piece of history:
“One attic yielded a treasure which must not be omitted, a small weather-beaten trunk which contained the legal papers of Judge Andrew Murray Lybrook, the son-in-law of Hardin and Nancy Jane, and, most remarkable of all, many business papers of Hardin W. Reynolds. For whatever it may be worth, this history of the Reynolds family would not have been possible without the contents of this strangely shaped little trunk which so appropriately sits now in the room where Hardin once laboriously prepared his accounts.”
The staff of the Reynolds Homestead encourages all of its friends and supporters to visit the voting site and cast a vote daily to support this project. Voting begins August 1 and the deadline is August 22, so vote then and vote often!
If anyone would like to make a donation to ensure the conservation and preservation of this most important piece of Reynolds family, Patrick County, Virginia, and United States history, please make a check payable to Treasurer of Virginia Tech, with the notation “Trunk Preservation” and mail it to the Reynolds Homestead, 463 Homestead Lane, Critz, Virginia 24082.
Virginia’s Top 10 Endangered Artifacts is a program of the Virginia Association of Museums (VAM). VAM is a statewide network serving the museum community with the vision of a united museum community inspiring the world around us.
