A Life Rooted in the Land That Became Chatham Hall

Maria Barbara Bolanz (1832-1870) has a particular significance to the history of Chatham and the area. Mrs. Bolanz was the first wife of Mr. Matthias Bolanz (1829-1901), whose family ran a vineyard and farm on the present-day site of Chatham Hall. The Bolanz family was part of the larger movement in the United States that brought millions of German-speaking immigrants to the country during the nineteenth century (one million alone in the 1850s). This wave also brought familiar Chatham names: Bilhartz, Viccelio, Moschler, and Sauer (Sours), whose descendants made and still make an imprint upon the area. Maria and Matthias Bolanz had three children, the most prominent being John Henry (Jack) Bolanz (1864-1930), whose store (which burned in 1938) is now a small park at the corner of Main and Depot Streets. The Bolanz farm operated a winery and grew grapes on the hillside (facing Peach Street) overlooking the town. They also produced award-winning fine brandy. Wine and brandy production ceased with the coming of Prohibition in 1920.

Mrs. Bolanz owned a riding pony which she loved, and she rode almost daily. There is some speculation that it was a riding accident that caused Mrs. Bolanz’s untimely death, as not only Maria Barbara lies on the south ridge of what was once the family farm, but the pony is buried alongside her as well. A hickory tree was planted above the grave, which then lay in an open meadow. The grave lies about a hundred yards behind the Chatham Hall Rectory. The hickory tree fell in a storm in 2022 and lies on the ground athwart the grave. Matthias, a widower in possession of a good fortune, needed a wife and remarried in 1873 to Emily Moschler (1848-1925). They went on to have four children: Ida (1874-1881); Frank (1877-1883); Adia (1883-1968), and Jesse (1886-1900). There are people in Chatham today who remember “Miss Ada” as a somewhat curmudgeonly piano teacher who lived alone (she never married) at the Davis Tavern – the present-day site of the Hunt & Co. parking lot on Reid Street.

The Bolanz family sold the farm after Maria’s death; eventually, the Gilmer family acquired the farm in the late 1800s and built a home atop the main hill of the property. At the time of his death in the 1890s, Mr. Gilmer was in discussions with Dr. Pruden about donating the land for the founding of an Episcopal girls' school. His wife, Mrs. Gilmer, carried on those discussions, and Chatham Hall was founded in 1894. The farmhouse was expanded and served as the main school building (Mrs. Gilmer continued to reside in the house for a while) until it burned to the ground on February 17, 1906, making way for the buildings that stand there today.

 

The grave of Maria Barbara Bolanz marks a significant link to mid-nineteenth-century Chatham and the early history of Chatham Hall.  The land upon which the school now sits was, 150 years ago, quite a different place: a vineyard covered the front hill overlooking Pruden and Peach Streets; the hill along 57 East was a pasture, not, as it is today, covered with hardwood trees. The restoration of the grave and the articulation of the history of Mrs. Bolanz, her family, and her connection to the greater historical movements in America give us an important opportunity to learn and teach about the dynamics of Chatham and Chatham Hall before it took on its familiar present-day contours.

Maria Barbara Bolanz lies under her restored grave on a hill of her family’s former farm, now the campus of Chatham Hall. The restoration of the grave was undertaken with the permission of Chatham Hall by members of the Pittsylvania Historical Society and grave-restoration expert Ivan Nielsen. The restoration is not quite complete: plans include replanting of traditional periwinkle about the grave and a small fence enclosing the final resting place of Maria Barbara [Sehringer] Bolanz of Niederweiler, Germany.