For decades, the BRC founder and spouse have attended small concerts at the historic Senior Hall on the campus of a nearby women`s college. In the entry way of the antebellum building hangs an intruiging photograph of a 1920`s school jazz band featuring an open back 5 string banjo.
Legend has it that a student hid her her boyfriend, a wounded Confederate soldier, in the bell tower of the Hall while Union forces searched for him. The two lovers later eloped on a stormy night but drowned crossing a swollen river. Their mournful ghosts allegedly haunt Senior Hall.
When these apparitions roam the hallways, maybe they gaze nostalgically on the jazz band photo remembering the banjo as a favorite musical instrument enjoyed by Yankee and Rebel soldiers alike.
In 1864, war artist Winslow Homer painted an unforgettable image of a banjo player on the front lines at the Siege of Petersburg (see below link).
No Comments