There have been many Thanksgiving days and other times of solemn and joyful gatherings at the old plantation known as Farmington in rural King and Queen County about 50 miles north of Richmond. The family will return for Thanksgiving 2009. The five grown children and the many grandchildren will gather. The lady of the manor will greet them all, but this Thanksgiving will be different from those of years past.
Fred Anderson
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Farmington is the home of Anne and Robert Temple Ryland Jr.; and two days after Thanksgiving, on Saturday, Nov. 28, there will be a memorial service at Bruington Baptist Church for Temple Ryland, who died on Sunday, Nov. 15, following a period of declining health.
Farmington is the homeplace of the Rylands, a family with deep taproots in the Virginia Baptist soil. It was the birthplace of Robert Ryland (1805-1899), whose several claims to history include the first presidency of Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) and a pastorate of First African Baptist Church of Richmond during the antebellum period when a white pastor was required by Virginia law to serve a black congregation. Robert Ryland left a legacy in his long involvement in Baptist life, but he was only one of many illustrious sons and daughters with Farmington connections.
Anne and Temple Ryland appreciated the old family seat and they spent blood, sweat, tears and considerable cash in restoring the house to a pristine condition, while respecting its historical integrity. During the long period of restoration, they lived in a trailer behind the big house. When the day came to move inside, they gladly abandoned the trailer and really did not even take the time to clear it out. Anyone who ever visited the restored house can appreciate why the couple rejoiced to call it home.
Temple Ryland enjoyed showing visitors around the house and grounds. He even showed off the basement as he told about the restoration. Like many old Virginia houses, Farmington experienced additions. Ryland would point out the part from 1795 and the later addition from the 1800s. He enjoyed telling about “the weaving house,” a small outbuilding which also at one time was used as a schoolhouse for family and neighbors.
In 1995, after Farmington manor house was restored, the Rylands hosted a family reunion for all the descendants of Josiah Ryland who had built the house. They sent invitations to all the far flung cousins and asked them to contact any others whom they might know. Josiah Ryland and his two wives had seven children; and among the children, no one had less than nine children of their own and one had 13, for a grand total of 72 grandchildren. It was possible that there were enough Ryland descendants to populate a small town.
Anne and Temple Ryland on the steps of Farmington.
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Farmington
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Some 300 Rylands — kissing cousins and total strangers — came; and in the morning of the reunion day, they met at nearby Bruington Baptist Church — the grand old home church of the Ryland clan — and shared stories about the family, the county and the homeplace. Afterwards, the entire clan descended upon Farmington for a catered lunch of chicken and ham. People came from all over the United States, including California, Florida, Texas, South Carolina, Maine and Massachusetts. Kinsfolk were asked to bring desserts and Temple Ryland always remembered the vast array of inviting desserts. He once described the scene in its biblical proportions: “We pitched a tent and seated all 300 persons under it for dinner with room at one end for exhibits. We got letters within a month afterwards asking when the next reunion would be held! I am glad that we did it when we did it.”
Anne and Temple Ryland enjoyed hosting the vast army of Josiah Ryland’s descendants but they also enjoyed hosting small parties of visitors. They created an aura of gracious hospitality at Farmington. They also became greatly involved in the life of Bruington Church, the Mid-Tidewater Baptist Association for which he served as moderator, and the Baptist General Association of Virginia, where they frequently participated as messengers. When weak limbs would no longer support the long walks necessary at BGAV annual meetings, Ryland rented a battery-powered scooter to get across the vast concourses. He wanted to be a part of Virginia Baptist life.
Temple Ryland was born near Elizabeth City, N.C., where his father was teaching school at the beginning of his career as an educator. His father moved to Richmond County, Va., where he was principal of Farnham High School and later superintendent of schools for Richmond and Westmoreland counties. “When we went to Richmond County,” Temple Ryland once shared, “we went to church in the village of Sharps and one day I saw ‘that thing’ sitting on a pew in the teenage class; and I said to myself, ‘That’s for me!’ I was about 12 years old.” When he said “that thing,” he was pointing to his beloved wife, Anne Motley Ryland. She laughed: “I don’t resent being called ‘that thing.’ ” By then, having been married well past 50 years, the couple had developed that degree of mutual admiration which allowed for gentle jesting.
Many of the Rylands followed in the footsteps of Robert Ryland of yore and went to the Baptist school in Richmond. Certainly, Temple’s father had gone to Richmond College when it first moved to its present site. Temple went there but was quick to say that as a student he never made a point of his relationship to the school’s first president. Dean Raymond Pinchbeck discovered the kinship and let others know. Anne went to Longwood College and Temple often declared that he should have been awarded an auxiliary degree for all the times he visited Longwood.
Temple transferred to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and several times he hitchhiked back to Virginia. He received a degree in electrical engineering and spent most of his career as head of the engineering department at the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Dahlgren. It was from Dahlgren that the couple began making their plans to retire to the Ryland homeplace in King and Queen.
It will be a solemn Thanksgiving this year at Farmington but a thanksgiving for certain as the large family, their many friends and a host of fellow Baptists give thanks for a life well spent. Robert Temple Ryland Jr. of Farmington and Bruington will be missed.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.