Thomas Cover’s Folly and All You Need to Know About Star Tannery, VA

Oval photograph of Thomas Cover during the period he established Star Tannery, c1870 in the wilds of Frederick County. Courtesy Stewart Bell, Jr. Archives Room, Handley Regional Library, Winchester, VA.

The Hagerstown Globe, dated January 27, 1920, cited the following: “Thomas Cover, of Winchester, millionaire, retired tanner and leather merchant, Friday conveyed to his grandson, Lewis N. Barton, one-third interest in about 111 acres of land, the deed reciting that it is part of a larger tract known as ‘Cover’s Folly’.”

“Asked why he so named his tract, Mr. Cover said some of his friends named it for him. When he bought the land, some years ago, nothing worthwhile would grow on it and friends teased him about getting the bad end of a bargain; but it is now one of the most productive pieces of land in the section of Middletown. Mr. Cover, who is the father of Loring A. Cover of Baltimore, president of the Security Cement and Lime Co., laid the foundation of his fortune among the hills and rocks of Star Tannery, in a wild section of Frederick County over 60 years ago. He regards Cover’s Folly as one of his greatest achievements.”

Star Tannery is an unincorporated community in southwestern Frederick County’s Cedar Creek Valley, near the Shenandoah County line. Located on Star Tannery Road (State Route 604), off Wardensville Pike (State Route 55) along the rugged and historic Cedar Creek, it is 13 miles northwest of Strasburg, VA, 16 miles southwest of Stephens City VA, and 12 miles due east of Wardensville WV.

The first European settlers here were English and Scotch-Irish farmers from the southwestern section of Virginia. Later, Germans and Dutch migrated from Northeastern Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, seeking employment in the iron smelting furnaces founded by Mordecai Bean and Isaac Zane in the 1760s.

Other furnaces were established along Cedar Creek and the community grew. Like many similar early communities, the people soon built a one room schoolhouse, community center, and church on Dry Run Road (now South Pifer Road).  The Gravel Spring post office was established in 1837, just five miles southwest of Mountain Falls. Records indicate that in April of 1842, 18 citizens, living along Dry Run Road, met in Dry Run Schoolhouse to discuss building the first church building.

The church was built and dedicated on November 25, 1849 as Gravel Springs Lutheran Church, named for the numerous underground springs located on a nearby farm and near the church.  From its beginning, the church was a main spoke in the wheel of the Star Tannery community. The Gravel Spring cemetery was established in 1852. In 1907, Thomas Cover paid to enclose the cemetery at Gravel Springs with a substantial iron ornamental fence built by the Stewart Iron Works, Cincinnati Ohio. In 1927, when the cemetery was enlarged, additional iron fencing was installed from the estate of the late Thomas Cover. According to Star Tannery resident Denise Rudolph, the church currently has 60 members.

Gravel Springs Lutheran Church at 1870 South Pifer Road in Star Tannery. Courtesy Nancy Gunderman

Just after the Civil War, when the Shenandoah Valley was striving to recover its economy, Thomas Cover, 25 years old, at the time, surveyed an old Tanyard in great need of repair. Cover came from a family of tanners and tannery operators in Uniontown, MD, near Baltimore. His father Tobias Cover, was a well-known resident of the Uniontown business community, and a representative in the Maryland legislature. Jacob Cover, grandfather of Thomas, was an Englishman and a tanner by trade.  Jacob was one of the first to engage in the tannery business in Carrol County, then part of Frederick County, Maryland.

Cover recognized the property had value because of the great forests of chestnut-oak, the tree which has bark necessary to be distilled into tannin. The native oak of Frederick County ridgetops and dry uplands, is named for a resemblance to the American chestnut.  On this land, then called Gravel Springs, Cover planned to rebuild a tannery, and since access to spring water flowing to Cedar Creek was essential in the tanning process, this land was an ideal location. Cover bought the property from the original owner, James Bean Wigginton who started the business in the 1850s, and Cover reopened the tannery in 1868. He named his new business Star Tannery for the Star Shoe Company in Baltimore which purchased his company’s leather.

Gravel Spring Cemetery in Star Tannery. Jacob Garrett, who died October 18, 1853 is the oldest recorded burial. Courtesy Nancy Gunderman.

It quickly grew into the largest Tanyard in Frederick County and some say Virginia, employing many local people, in the tannery, felling of trees and transporting of bark.  The tannery supported a substantial network of related tradesmen and clearly served a populace well beyond the town limits. Sawmills were required to furnish a steady supply of bark. Leather produced here provided craftsmen with material for harness making, shoes and boots, belts for steam powered machinery, and many other products.

The manufacture of leather in the nineteenth century was a complicated business, involving arduous work and foul-smelling processes. A raw hide was carefully scraped on a fleshing beam to eliminate residual flesh, then soaked for several days in a lime solution to remove the fur. The hide was delimed, involving another rinsing process, then the hide was tanned, by steeping it in a strong solution of ground oak bark containing tannin. After another thorough rinse and partial drying, the hide was pulled and stretched until it was fully dry, pliable, and ready to use.

Then the actual tanning process began, which involved soaking the hide in vats filled with water mixed with increasing concentrations of tannin. Tannin, derived from the oak bark stripped from trees was the chemical that stabilized hides and turned them into a lighter yellowish colored leather.  When the process was completed, the Star Tannery trademark (a round circle containing a star whose points touched the circumference of the circle) was stamped on the finished product. The finished hides were of very high quality and in demand both in the United States and Europe.

As the great chestnut oak forests were thinned out, bark had to be hauled from greater distances. Proximity to high-tannin trees like oaks became the key to cost effective tanning. As forests in Frederick and Shenandoah Counties began to disappear, shipping the heavy bark longer distances, via mule driven wagons, became more expensive. Gradually the local forests became so diminished that the tannery was not cost effective and swiftly closed sometime in 1895 when the last pieces of equipment were carted away.  Thomas Cover, always the entrepreneur, established a second tannery at Capon Bridge, WV by 1890, and third in Lost City WV in 1892.  Ten years later in 1902, Cover built a tannery in Moorefield, WV called Potomac Tannery. He moved to Winchester in 1886, died there in 1926, and was buried in Mount Hebron Cemetery.

Star Tannery’s first post office opened July 1, 1872, on the grounds of the Tanyard. Watson C. Cooper, the first postmaster stated that there was no village population, however the office would serve 500 patrons. Mail was supplied six days a week by the Strasburg to Capon Springs Contract Rural Route No.4671. The post office was located two miles northeast of Gravel Springs. The Gravel Spring post office was discontinued in 1906 with service transferred to Wheatfield, Shenandoah County.

Star Tannery Post office currently resides in a mobile unit located beside the Fire Department at 950 Brill Road. Courtesy Nancy Gunderman

Today the Star Tannery post office resides in a mobile unit that is located next to the Fire Department at 950 Brill Road. STVFR has leased a small piece of land for a permanent office, just south of the Fire Department on Gravel Springs Road, approximately 1,200 feet from the intersection of Brill Road, and Star Tannery Road. A site plan is in the works.

It was in 1873 that Thomas Cover decided to establish an annual picnic for the tannery employees and their families. Later, the Star Tannery picnic would evolve into a reunion of former employees and for residents of Gravel Springs.  It would continue to grow into a major event in the Shenandoah Valley.

Thomas Cover scheduled the first picnic on the second Saturday in August because he determined that it rarely rained on that day. He studied the rain patterns in the little southwestern foothills community because the tanning process included leaving the hides outside in open air to soak in large vats. This segment of the process had to be done on rainless days.

So, the picnic has remained scheduled on the same weekend for the last 150 years. After the tannery closed in the 1895, the picnic was immediately taken over by the Ladies Aid Society of the Gravel Springs Church. The name eventually changed to Gravel Springs Picnic. In the early years, farmers would slaughter their beef and pork, and the Ladies prepared food days in advance of the picnic. On the morning of the event, the food would be packed on ice in wash basins, loaded on wagons and hauled off to the picnic grounds.

In the early 1890s a group of young men from the community formed a brass band. S. Romanus Heishman and his sons were the major influence in creating the Gravel Springs Brass Band and were gifted musicians. The roster was dominated by Heishman’s, Himelright’s and Stein’s family members. The band entertained at the Gravel Springs Picnic, church functions, parades, and yard parties. At one time, the band practiced in Lebanon Church in Shenandoah County at the Unger store building. The group disbanded in 1939.

A Winchester Evening Star article, dated August 21, 1934 stated that over 3,000 people were estimated to have attended the Gravel Springs Picnic including representatives from every section of the Valley and many other parts of the state. The picnic has been held annually, except for two years during World War II, when gas rationing made attending the picnic impossible.  Although Cover’s rain predictions have not always been correct, there is much to be said for holding on to the tradition he initiated. The picnic has always been held in a grove next to the Gravel Springs Lutheran church.

The 151st Annual Gravel Springs Picnic will be held Saturday, August 10 on the Gravel Springs Lutheran Church Picnic Grounds. Meals will consist of barbecue chicken halves, country ham sandwiches, hot dogs, hamburgers, drinks, and ice cream.  Since the pandemic in 2020 shuttered the picnic, attendance has declined from 500 to 300 adults and children, and organizers have restructured the venue to strictly a Bluegrass and Barbeque event.  The picnic begins at 3 pm and runs until 7 pm.  Those attending are encouraged to bring lawn chairs and enjoy the afternoon!

With help the Strasburg and Stephens City Fire stations, Station 17 Star Tannery Volunteer Fire and Rescue (STVFR) was organized in November, 1971. Currently, Elizebth Crumrine is President and Tim Mullins is Chief. The station was created from a building formally used as Roger P. Sager’s poultry processing business. Mr. Sager donated the building and one acre of land. After several years, the station was enlarged, with a social hall and additional bays to house emergency apparatus. After Roger Sagers’ passing in 1990, STVFR purchased 39 more acres of Sager’s adjoining property.

Star Tannery Volunteer Fire and Rescue facility at 950 Brill Road. The fire company has a first due area of 30 square miles. Courtesy Nancy Gunderman

Today the STVFR is currently staffed by fifteen volunteers and two full time paid career firefighters. Additional members assist with fundraisers. STVFR holds four Oyster Dinners annually in the social hall, in March and April and in October and November/December. The STVFR Fireman’s Carnival is their largest event. The event includes food, music, and festival games. The carnival occurs on the first Saturday in August, every year, for the past 40+ years. The hugely attended Fireman’s Parade was discontinued after the pandemic.

The station serves the southwestern portion of Frederick County, and the northeastern slice of Shenandoah County, Virginia.  STVFR received approximately 300 public service, fire, and emergency calls in 2023. In the past STVFR responded to 36 calls in 1986, 62 in 1987 and 76 in 1993.

Emergencies on undeveloped tracts of land are common for Station 17. The STVFD responds to medical emergencies that occur due to hunters and hikers requiring assistance in remote areas. The department often must haul fire suppression equipment through thick and rocky forests with great changes in elevation to fight roaring barn blazes on agricultural properties.

The Bluffs at Cedar Creek Campground on Star Tannery Road, established in 2021, host a Summer Bluegrass Festival called Crick Pickin on the last Saturday of June, July, and August. The festival began in 2015. Owner Levi Pitcock describes it on his Facebook site as simply an old-school Bluegrass venue.

The Corners Bar and Grill Family Restaurant at 1429 South Pifer Road describes itself as a locally owned country restaurant providing great BBQ, good company, and entertainment. The Star Tannery establishment can trace its origin back to 1941, when it was simply known as Four Corners.

A final thought; phone service first came to Star Tannery in 1959. The town residents had petitioned the phone service in Frederick County for years, but to no avail. Finally, it was a phone company in Shenandoah County that took the contract which is why Star Tannery has a Shenandoah County telephone exchange.

While many Star Tannery residents have a free-spirited attitude towards life, one befitting their living in the wilds of Frederick County, they often describe themselves as self-reliant, hard-working, generous, loyal, and appreciative of the blessings received from residing amongst the rolling hills and starry nights of Cedar Creek Valley.

Note: The following references were used in the writing of this article; Frederick County, Virginia post offices past and present, by J. Floyd Wine, dated 1987, Horsefeathers by Marie Shull, dated 1988, Gravel Springs Lutheran Church 1849-1999, by David Lee Brill, dated 1999, and various Winchester newspaper articles from the 1920s through the 1990s. Also, current Star Tannery information was received from Billy and Denise Rudolph, via email correspondence.