Burke's Garden is an upland valley and

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Tazewell County, Virginia, United States. It is surrounded by the Garden Mountain Cluster, wild areas in the national forest recognized by the Wilderness Society as "Mountain Treasures", areas that are worthy of protection from logging and road construction.

Geography and geology

The oval, bowl-like

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains and typically containing a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

(or "

cove A cove is a small bay or coastal inlet. They usually have narrow, restricted entrances, are often circular or oval, and are often situated within a larger bay. Small, narrow, sheltered bays, inlets, creek (tidal), creeks, or recesses in a coast ...

") is known for its fertile land and was once the bed of an ancient sea. About long and wide, it resembles a large asteroid impact or

volcanic crater A volcanic crater is an approximately circular depression in the ground caused by volcanic activity. It is typically a bowl-shaped feature containing one or more vents. During volcanic eruptions, molten magma and volcanic gases rise from an ...

in satellite photographs and on topographic maps; however, it is actually a dome-shaped geologic up-warp (

anticline In structural geology, an anticline is a type of Fold (geology), fold that is an arch-like shape and has its oldest Bed (geology), beds at its core, whereas a syncline is the inverse of an anticline. A typical anticline is convex curve, c ...

) that exposed older

Ordovician The Ordovician ( ) is a geologic period and System (geology), system, the second of six periods of the Paleozoic Era (geology), Era, and the second of twelve periods of the Phanerozoic Eon (geology), Eon. The Ordovician spans 41.6 million years f ...

aged

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

which is much more erodible than the younger

Silurian The Silurian ( ) is a geologic period and system spanning 23.5 million years from the end of the Ordovician Period, at million years ago ( Mya), to the beginning of the Devonian Period, Mya. The Silurian is the third and shortest period of t ...

sandstone of surrounding ridges. The mountain valley is the second highest in Virginia at around above sea level and is surrounded by Garden Mountain. This unusual topography is similar to that of Canaan Valley in neighboring

West Virginia West Virginia is a mountainous U.S. state, state in the Southern United States, Southern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States.The United States Census Bureau, Census Bureau and the Association of American ...

Climate

According to the

Köppen Climate Classification The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...

system, Burke's Garden has an

oceanic climate An oceanic climate, also known as a marine climate or maritime climate, is the temperate climate sub-type in Köppen climate classification, Köppen classification represented as ''Cfb'', typical of west coasts in higher middle latitudes of co ...

, abbreviated "Cfb" on climate maps. The hottest temperature recorded in Burke's Garden was on July 28, 1930, while the coldest temperature recorded was on December 30, 1917.

History

The area was long occupied by varying cultures of indigenous peoples. Burke's Garden was first surveyed in 1748 by a team of

surveyor Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually on the ...

s working for local landowner James Patton. One of the party, James Burke an Irishman, is said to have thrown away some

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

peelings while cooking. A year later, when the party returned to the area, they found potatoes growing in the area where the peels had been left. The area was dubbed Burke's Garden as something of a joke, but the name stuck. In 1749,

William Ingles William Ingles (1729 – September, 1782), also spelled Inglis, Ingliss, Engels, or English, was a colonist and soldier in colonial Virginia. He participated in the Sandy Creek Expedition and was a signatory of the Fincastle Resolutions. He was ...

went to Burke's Garden to build a house with his uncle, John Ingles.Chalkley, L., Lockwood, M. S., Chalkley, L. ''Chronicles of the Scotch-Irish settlement in Virginia: extracted from the original court records of Augusta County, 1745-1800.'' Vol. 2. Rosslyn, VA: The Commonwealth Printing Co.
/ref> The community was an outpost of German immigrants who settled in the backcountry frontier in the late 18th century. an

an
''Accompanying map''
/ref> The area remained relatively isolated as it was not near the transportation corridors of major rivers. In the late 19th century, agents for the

Vanderbilt family The Vanderbilt family is an American family who gained prominence during the Gilded Age. Their success began with the shipping and railroad empires of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and the family expanded into various other areas of industry and philanth ...

contacted local farmers about selling land so that the family could build a large estate there. Nobody wanted to sell, and the Vanderbilts instead constructed their

Biltmore Estate Biltmore Estate is a historic house museum and tourist attraction in Asheville, North Carolina, United States. The main residence, Biltmore House (or Biltmore Mansion), is a Châteauesque-style mansion built for George Washington Vanderbilt II ...

near

Asheville, North Carolina Asheville ( ) is a city in Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. Located at the confluence of the French Broad River, French Broad and Swannanoa River, Swannanoa rivers, it is the county seat of Buncombe County. It is the most populou ...

. In the 1990s, a small number of

Amish The Amish (, also or ; ; ), formally the Old Order Amish, are a group of traditionalist Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian Christian denomination, church fellowships with Swiss people, Swiss and Alsace, Alsatian origins. As they ...

families moved to Burke's Garden, but later they moved out after being unable to purchase enough land and attract enough other Amish families to form a viable community. Today Amish have returned to Burkes Garden and have a thriving community. Lines of scooters can be seen daily outside the Burkes Garden School and Community Center where the Amish now have their own school. According to Chris Wesner of AmishAmerica there Amish community consisted of about 100 persons in 2021."The Amish in Virginia"
at YouTube The county's oldest church, the Central

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

church, is located in Burke's Garden. It originally served multiple denominations so was called Union Church. When the congregation learned their Union Church had joined the Lutheran denomination most members left and established Methodist and Presbyterian churches. In 1952, the community was terrorized by the " Varmint of Burke's Garden", a large

coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans''), also known as the American jackal, prairie wolf, or brush wolf, is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the Wolf, gray wolf, and slightly smaller than the c ...

that killed many local

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

and caused much damage before being killed. The area is drained by Wolf Creek (a tributary of the New River) which flows out of the geographic bowl in a northeasterly direction. The entire valley is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

as the Burke's Garden Rural Historic District; the Burke's Garden Central Church and Cemetery is also listed on the NRHP.

References

*Fenneman, Nevin M. (1938), ''Physiography of Eastern United States'', New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc., pp 251, 254.

External links

Historical sites in Tazewell County
{{authority control Unincorporated communities in Tazewell County, Virginia Valleys of Virginia Geography of Tazewell County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Tazewell County, Virginia Unincorporated communities in Virginia

Geography and geology

Climate

History

See also

References

External links