Discover Smith Mountain Lake
SUMMER 2016
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There is no statue of Mildred Board
Thaxton in the Moneta Town Square.
Neither is there one of the goddess,
Moneta, for whom she named the
place. In fact, if indeed there ever was
one, at the time of this writing, there is
no MonetaTown Square.
Mrs. Thaxton was the wife of John
Thaxton, the first Postmaster of what is
now one of a handful of postal delivery
zones here at Smith Mountain Lake.
Although the area had been settled
over some three decades, it wasn’t
until 1886 that the Moneta Post Office
was created, the name coming as a
suggestion from Mrs. Thaxton, lifted
from the verses ofThe Fall of Hyperion,
by the celebrated poet John Keats.
The Thaxtons would hardly recognize
the place today, and not just because of
the 22,000 acre liquid addition to the
neighborhood. They had built the first
store in what would eventually become
a thriving rural community, with
farmers, merchants, and tradesmen
all contributing to the local economy.
Their store, built in 1880, eventually
burned down in 1942.
The owner, Grover Martin, had bought
the property around 1920, and started
a Ford Tractor dealership, which later
folded in the Great Depression. Others
built stores, banks, restaurants, garages,
and factories. The railroad had come
through in 1908, bringing increased
prosperity with it. Moneta was a focal
point of the region’s economy.
Whether by divine inspiration, or just
idle the musings of a poetry lover, the
town was officially named “Moneta”.
The name came from a Roman goddess
who was derived from Greek religion,
after the Greek goddess, Mnemosyne,
who was the goddess of memory, and
mother of the Muses.The distinction of
being indirectly named for the goddess
of memory is but one of the ironies
surrounding what is often described as
one ofVirginia’s “Lost Communities”.
The goddess Juno Moneta was the
protectress of funds. Money in ancient
Rome was coined in her temple, and
it is in fact from her very name that
the words “money”, and “mint” were
derived. Thus, the naming of our own
Moneta was simultaneously prophetic
and ironic. The town prospered for
many decades, but eventually drifted
into near obscurity.
“It was a real busy place when I was
a boy”, recalls James Dinwiddie,
who lives today on what remains of
his family’s land, in what is now a
waterfront home. His grandfather, for
whom he is named, had contracted to
build the house back in 1892. A horse
barn on the property constructed of
logs was eventually donated and moved
to the site of the Booker T.Washington
National Monument, where it is
presently in use.
“Back then”, he muses, “You hired a guy
to build your house. He would help
you pick out trees, and then he’d bring
a sawmill out to the site. He’d cut down
the trees, run ‘em through the sawmill,
and stack the lumber. Then he’d leave
it right there for two years before
he’d start building. They didn’t like to
use any green wood when they built a
house”.
The Dinwiddies of Moneta history were
all descended fromWilliam Dinwiddie,
an itinerant antebellum silversmith and
saddler out of Lynchburg. In the days
before the War Between the States,
it was common for these types of
tradesmen to travel from plantation to
plantation, plying their trades on site. It
was on a visit to the Holland Plantation
that he became enamored of Sarah
Holland, whom he eventually married.
Some years after the war, Sarah
inherited all of her fathers land. By
that time, the Dinwiddies had five
children. One of their sons, Booker
Holland Dinwiddie, became quite the
entrepreneur. He eventually built his
own store around 1923, partnering
MONETA
SHOW ME THE
by Tim Ernandes
