Rants and Ramblings: random commentary about culture, media, politics, technology and whatnot.

town of hurt

On our way to Peaks of Otter on Thursday, we noticed a road sign that mentioned Bedford (the next town) and another town past that called Altavista. Randomly curious, I looked it up in our road atlas and found that the town just next-door to Altavista is called Hurt.

Being a Hurt myself, this warranted investigation.

The next day, we took a detour through the town on our trip back home. There’s not a whole lot to it — a mostly-empty shopping center with a post office, a factory, some churches, an elementary school and a fair number of houses. It was really strange to see the name “Hurt” in so many places — Hurt United Methodist Church, Hurt Elementary School, etc.

Unable to resist, I stopped at the post office and purchased a couple postcards to send to my parents and grandparents — hopefully with a Hurt, Va. postmark. I felt a bit odd about the prospect of paying for my purchase in Hurt with a debit card that also bears the name Hurt. So I paid cash.

Once we got home, Rob and I set out to do a bit of research about the town and its origin. I found a land record that included a bit of town history:

The property herein conveyed is a small part of the lands patented by Captain Benjamin Clement in the year 1748, and which remained in the Clement family until the same was purchased from the said Clement family beginning in the year 1862 by John L. Hurt by deeds duly of record in the Clerk’s Office of the Circuit Court of Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The said John L. Hurt by deed dated April 14, 1920, conveyed his “Staunton River Farm” unto his nephew and namesake, John L. Hurt, Jr., which conveyance included the “Clement Hill Tract” and which conveyance deed is recorded in the aforesaid Clerk’s Office in Deed Book 165, at page 189.

The property hereby conveyed is a part of the property devised to the party of the first part by the Last Will and Testament of John L. Hurt, Jr., duly probated in the aforesaid Clerk’s office and of record therein in Will Book 18, at page 152, said property having been conveyed to the Town of Hurt by deed dated August 7, 1967 from Henry C. Hurt, Sr., and First and Merchants National Bank, Executors of the Estate of John L. Hurt, Jr. which deed is recorded in the said Clerk’s Office in Deed Book 487, Page 451.

Researching the town of Hurt evolved into a minor genealogical obsession for me over the weekend. According to my fuzzy understanding of my family history, the Hurts came to Virginia from England sometime in the 1600s and, after a stopover in Kentucky, eventually migrated to Illinois, where my dad’s branch of the family originated. While I couldn’t necessarily find anything definitive, I think it wouldn’t be unreasonable to posit some kind of connection between my Hurts and the Virginia Hurts who founded the town. In my reading, I did find something unexpected: an archive of Hurt family newsletters from the 1960s, which offered a treasure trove of family tree information dating back as far as 1792. I have no idea why they’re online — someone even went to the trouble of retyping or OCR scanning some of them — but they were quite useful. I dutifully tried to record everything at a family tree Web site.

More Photos from August 3, 2007 »