Historic Cuffeytown Traditional Cache
Episcodad: Someone has moved John Deere and with it the cache, so this one will sadly have to be archived. Perhaps another cache will appear in Cuffytown in the future.
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It's a beautiful Monday in December (my normal day off and prime time for geocaching). After testifying at a parole violation hearing in Chesapeake, I head towards a Tomcats cache I hadn't found yet (G is for Giving Thanks 2007) along Head of River Road. Nice rural countryside!! What's this? A sign for "Historic Cuffeytown" Never heard of it!! The History Major in me is curious and I pull off the road into Cuffeytown. There's nothing visible to explain its historicity (but see Google Info below). Look, there's a nice little park in this hamlet (Long Ridge Play Area). I'll bet there's not another geocache within 2 miles (2.2 actually). Just happen to have a round 2" diameter tupperware container in the trunk with a log sheet inside. After a brief tour of the area I find a spot that will present a little challenge, and voila....installed and off we go. (BTW - bring your own writing implement)
Here's what I found about Cuffeytown:
1) Cuffeytown Cemetery has the largest repository of Afro-Virginian Union Army Civil War Veterans interred in a non-governmental and non-veteran organization cemetery in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This cemetery is arguably a site on the African American Civil War Trail. In that, the “Cuffeytown 13” interred there were volunteers of mostly “free born” Africans who served in the “War of the Rebellion” to save the Union and to defeat slavery. In addition, Josephus Cuffey a three term elected justice of the peace during Black Reconstruction in Virginia and Miles Cuffey, a member of the Cuffeytown School for Colored children board of trustees are interred there. The school was the first school organized by free Africans after the Civil War in Norfolk County.
2) Gabriel Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (A.M.E.Z.) 2216 Long Ridge Road (Cuffeytown), Virginia is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in the city of Chesapeake. This church traces its beginnings back to 1866. The founders of this church were “free born” and enslaved Africans from Cuffeytown. Many of the founders were former Afro-Virginian Union Army Civil War Veterans who are known today as the “Cuffeytown Patriots.” The founders of this church organized themselves 42 years after the formation of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church in 1822 in New York City. The record shows that Walter Smith of Cuffeytown 13 prominence was a “trustee” in the early church. The historic site of the first LongRidge School is located on the parking lot between the church and the old pastoral residence.
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
VA W.Q.
Treasures
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