PATC Trail Store

NEW PUBLICATION

Announcing the Second Edition of 

These Hills Were Home: A Walking History Guide to the Blue Ridge Mountains 
of Northern Greene and Western Madison County, Virginia

The PATC publications committee is pleased to announce the second edition of Kristie Kendall’s walking history guide, These Hills Were Home: A Walking History Guide to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Northern Greene and Western Madison County, Virginia. For those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of following Kristie’s stories of life before the park, you are in for a treat. Seemingly effortlessly, Kristie combines three elements to provide us with a unique walking guide: she provides maps and text that lay out clear directions for following walking paths as they wind past the remains of homes and other structures and a varied array of artifacts reflecting life as it was live on the mountain, all of which is given more substance through her detailed descriptions and the many photographs of the people who lived there and their activities.  Kristie’s love and respect for the people who once lived in this area is evident in her writing. She states that her purpose in writing this walking guide “is to breathe new life into the history of the mountain communities that once flourished in the Blue Ridge Mountains.”* She reminds readers at several points that the sites described in the book are the places where generations of mountain families lived out their lives, and should be treated with respect and left undisturbed. 

In the new edition, Kristie has added new sites to the Conway River chapter, the Slaughter Chapter, and the Saddleback Mountain chapter; made updates to other chapters; and added six new photographs. 

About the Author: Since 2011, Kristie has worked at the Piedmont Environmental Council, an environmental non-profit that focuses on conservation and land use issues in a nine-county area of Virginia’s Piedmont, where she serves as the Historic Preservation Coordinator. She has held previous positions on the board of the Germanna Foundation, Fauquier Architectural Review Board, and Blue Ridge Heritage Project. Her preservation interests include the documentation, mapping, and preservation of underrepresented communities in Virginia’s Piedmont, including mountain settlements in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Mountains and free black and post-emancipation communities in Virginia. She is a lifelong Virginian with deep roots in Madison County.

Retail price of the new edition is $16.00, and the discounted member price $12.80. 

Click here to purchase this book. 

*Quotes taken from About this Book, page 1.