Man who worked on local dig dies

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

A former state archeologist whose early excavations in Bland County indirectly led to the founding of the Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum has died. Col. Howard A. MacCord Sr. of Midlothian was 93.
“Colonel MacCord had been here several times,” noted Penny Plummer, co-director of the Wolf Creek Indian Village and Museum in the Hicksville community of Bland County. “October is archaeology month and he had made several talks for us. He was very supportive.”
While MacCord didn’t arrive in the county until May 1970, his work followed an incident in 1930 when the late Brown Johnson, a local farmer, unearthed a Native American site while plowing bottom lands near Wolf Creek. Johnson never allowed a formal archeological excavation to take place.
A decision to build Interstate 77 along the valley of Wolf Creek made it apparent the site would be destroyed by rechanneling the creek. MacCord led a month-long archeological excavation, which was part of a cooperative effort of the Virginia State Library, the Tazewell Residency of the Virginia Department of Highways and the Archeological Society of Virginia.
MacCord uncovered 13 house patterns, 14 burials, 30 storage pits, four barbecue pits and several artifacts such as chipped stone, projectile points, cores, drill and thumbnail scraper. He later mapped the area and cataloged the various burial sites and artifacts he found.
MacCord’s maps are the basis for the layout of the village that opened in 1996 along U.S. Route 52 just north of the Bastian I-77 interchange. MacCord was among the honored guests to raise a ceremonial pole in the center of the compound for the Wolf Creek Indian Village.
The village is a recreation of an American Indian community that existed nearby approximately 504 years ago. It contains wigwams, fire pits and a perimeter fence.
The Indian village was proposed by then county supervisor George Schaeffer Jr. in 1968 who formed the Bland County Development Corp. to organize the project and arrange a loan from the Bland County Board of Supervisors to buy land for the village.
The BCDC folded in 1993 after supervisors demanded repayment for the loan used to buy the Indian village land. The property was donated to another organization to which Schaeffer was affiliated, the Bland County Historical Society, which continues to own and operate the complex.
In November 1998, the village museum opened after a 4,800 square-foot building project. It included a gift shop.
MacCord died Monday, Nov. 3, after a brief hospitalization. He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 1962 after service in World War II and the Korean War.
A memorial service will be held Saturday, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. at Brandermill United Methodist Church in Chesterfield County. Interment will be Tuesday, Dec. 9, at 3 p.m. in Arlington National Cemetery.
“He was a very sweet man,” Plummer added. “He cared a lot about this area and our state.”
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 1-800-655-1406 or .