At a time when the Shenandoah town of Winchester, Virginia has recently enlarged its historic district, another celebration of this lovely old town and Frederick County has been completed.

Some twenty years ago, the town’s most noteworthy and historic buildings were recorded in a modern primitive painting by Page Huff Dillon.  The painting was commissioned by Margaretta Barton Colt to commemorate her book Defend the Valley. A Shenandoah Family in the Civil War. (New York, 1994). Some of the buildings that figure prominently in the book are shown, along with others in Frederick County’s rich history. The painting, completed in 1995, was reproduced in prints sold for the benefit of the Winchester-Frederick County Historical Society, and has become beloved locally.

In 2015 an accomplished group of needlewomen undertook to reproduce the painting in a tapestry that will hang in the Handley Library in Winchester, and in other public places in the county.  (The painting is 20 x 30”, the tapestry is about 4 feet by 6 ½ feet.)