In 1928 Mr. F.E. Palmer came to Woodstock from Connecticut to begin teaching business classes at what is now Massanutten Military Academy. After 12 years of teaching Palmer founded his own Business School in Woodstock. Over time it would grow to…

Sometime during the first decades of the 20th century, this rubble-style building was constructed overlooking the Shenandoah River just south of what is now called the “Narrow Passage.” The early history of this site is not well known. Some…

On September 16, 1951 the Shenandoah County Memorial Hospital was dedicated in Woodstock Virginia. This was the result of a massive fundraising campaign that lasted just over five years. Prior to the completion of the hospital, individual doctors…

In 1886 a group of local businessmen, farmers, and community leaders banded together to form the Shenandoah County Agricultural Society. This organization was designed to promote the area’s agricultural, commercial, and industrial products to locals…

In 1822 the Rev. William H. Foote, a Presbyterian, began preaching in Shenandoah County. He noted that when he arrived there were three members of that denomination in the county, one in Woodstock and two in Strasburg. That number would grow…

As early as 1906, Woodstock’s African American community was using this land as a burial site. Prior to this, most African Americans had been buried in the town’s slave cemeteries where many of their ancestors rested. This new site, named…

The first Lutheran Church in Woodstock predated the arrival of the town’s founder Jacob Mueller. Local German residents had felt the need for a place to practice their Lutheran faith and had therefore constructed a modest wooden structure in the…

Methodist Francis Ausbury, one of the first two Methodist Bishops in the United States, visited this area numerous times between 1790 and 1809. At the time, Methodist ministers and pastors from other denominations spent most of their time on…

St. John’s Bosco is a product of the influx of Irish immigrants who came to Shenandoah County in the mid to late 19th century to work on the local railroads. Two of these individuals, Michael Geary and Patrick Reiley, organized and built the original…

In November 1769 the Governor, Council, and Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia approved an act that created the Beckford Parish of the Episcopal, then Anglican Church. As defined, Beckford covered what is now Shenandoah County Virginia. Since the…