We usually think of the Dragon as harboring countless numbers of natural wonders, as does it, but we may not know that it is also an interesting site for local history and lore.

One of the best known stories about the Dragon occurred during the Civil War. As the Union troops moved closer to the heart of Virginia the governor ordered that all county records be sent to Richmond for safekeeping. Philemon T. Woodward, Clerk of the Court for Middlesex County from 1852 to 1892, perceived this order as dangerous. He feared that if the Union Army invaded Richmond, as it appeared they would, county records from across the state would be destroyed. He thought it safer to hide the records locally. Woodward, with permission from Judge Christian, boxed the records and with the help of local slaves, buried them in a secret location. One version of the story says that he buried them in a barn on Little Island in the Dragon.

In 1864 Brigadier General Judson Kilpatrick, commander of the Army of the Potomac Cavalry, invaded Middlesex County with his "mounted devils". He destroyed any papers found in the courthouse in Saluda, but never discovered the records. Legend tells us that he bivouacked on Little Island and fed his horses from the feed in the barn beneath which the records were hidden.

Other versions of the story have the records hidden in other locations. We will never know the truth of the details, but the fact remains that Middlesex is one of the few counties in Tidewater Virginia whose records go back to the time of its colonial settlement in the1600's.

Sources for this story include conversation with Louise Eubank Gray, First Lady of Middlesex County, and Soldiers at the Doorstep: Civil War Lore, by Larry S. Chowning.

Judy Cathey