VARINA, Va. (AP) – Growing up in Varina in the 1940s and ’50s, Howard Eberly played on his family’s farm, swam in the creek and found “treasures” on the land. Turns out, some of those treasures are significant historic artifacts.
The Eberly family moved from Pennsylvania to Henrico County in the 1880s and established Four Mile Creek Farm in Varina. Howard Eberly, 79, is a fourth-generation owner of the land and lives in the family home off Route 5.
Before no-till farming became the norm, Eberly’s family used to plow the ground before planting crops. Eberly said he remembers going outside after the rain fell on the plowed soil and finding such things as arrowheads and bullets.
His family knew the land had been a battlefield, but he didn’t know much about the history.
Eberly later befriended a state archaeologist and historians who taught him some of the history of the land where his family’s farm sits.