A summary of the purpose and process of the Forum, and of the content of its nine papers and their recommendations, by the Chairman, Warren Hofstra. 17 pages

A summary of the program for the Clermont Interpretive Forum I on June 24-25, 2011, in which nine Virginia historians presented papers on seven topics relevant to the Clermont site, organized by Warren Hofstra, Ph.D., Shenandoah University. 2 pages

Rice considers some of the potential uses of the Clermont site in a time when attendance at traditional-model historic house/plantation sites is sharply declining, but growing at sites that have found new work to do and different ways to engage their audiences and the communities they are part of. 18 pages

Koons discusses the centrality of commercial wheat farming to Edward McCormick’s agricultural entrepreneurship at Clermont in the mid-19th century, placing it and the central tendencies of this type of farming in a broader context. 20 pages

Ely discusses both the representative and singular qualities of Clarke County as a county with a disproportionately high number of slaves in the Shenandoah Valley, and of two subjects of importance which pervade the history of race there and throughout the South: black self-help, and black-white relations. 13 pages

White reviews the importance and demonstrates the possibilities of naming and placing in family relationships the unnamed/single-named enslaved African Americans who built and operated Clermont, and into relationship with their descendents through Reconstruction and into modern times, emphasizing the importance of this for the integrity of interpretation of Clermont. 22 pages

Lee explores the sources relating to black and white women at Clermont over a 180 period (1824-2004) and three themes that emerge: nurturing, place, and lineage; suggesting not only lines for further research but also elements of the mission of today’s Clermont: nurturing the community, connecting people with the landscape, and engaging them in building a future conscious of the past. 43 pages

Pogue provides a description of the owner’s house at Clermont through its successive construction phases from 1755-56 through 1971, places it in the context of other Chesapeake houses, noting that its remarkably high level of preservation and precise chronological data allows Clermont to serve as a classroom for the study of Virginia architecture over more than 200 years, and a case study for the trajectory of the region’s social development. 14 pages

Kalbian describes the rich documentary history of Clermont and relates it to the social and economic history of the site, connecting it to the extensive dendrochronological studies of the site’s buildings, as well as to other period dwellings in Clarke and neighboring counties; she also describes Clermont’s remaining log slave house (1823) and the smoke house (1803). 15 pages

Wallenstein discusses over two and a half centuries of doctors and lawyers in the McCormick-Williams families, beginning with Dr. John McCormick (1703-1768, immigrates from Ireland ca. 1730), viewing Clermont as a portal through which can be traced local involvement in large events and broad developments over much of the country’s history. 24 pages

Whitehorne describes military events that occurred near or on Clermont, but indicates that the greater military story lies in the contributions of its four owner-families (Vance, Wadlington, Snickers, McCormick-Williams) serving in every generation and who in doing so witnessed many of the events that defined and explained the path of American history, whose final representative was Admiral Lynde McCormick, the first Supreme Commander Atlantic NATO, who died in office as President of the Naval War College in 1956. 39 pages

Biographies of the Chairman and nine presenters at the Clermont Interpretive Forum I, as of June, 2011. 5 pages