Trail at Montpelier will offer tourists a unique walk back in time

New trail will give visitors to Orange's Montpelier a path to history Date published: 2/17/2005 MATTHEW REEVES picks his way through small saplings on the trail, stopping occasionally to mark a branch with red tape. It doesn't look like much on a winter morning dappled with snow, but by spring, this roughly mile-long loop at Montpelier will offer two new insights about the estate in Orange County that was once home to President James Madison. It will be called the McGowan-Gilmore interpretive walking trail, and will focus on two very different groups that occupied adjacent sites across State Route 20 from the Montpelier mansion. The first: Civil War troops, including Confederate Gen. Samuel McGowan's South Carolina brigade, which camped on the site in 1863 and 1864. The second: a restored cabin at the end of the trail that once belonged to George Gilmore, a slave born on the Montpelier plantation who later established a small farm there after being emancipated. After the Civil War, he eventually bought the property from Dr. James A. Madison. Full Story: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2005/022005/02172005/1673708