Meet the ‘friends’ helping to bridge the gap at Widewater State Park

STAFFORD COUNTY — When it was time to commemorate and educate the public about one local man’s contribution to the Harlem Renaissance, a group of Stafford residents stepped up to make it happen.

Commemorating Palmer Hayden, Widewater-born artist

Friends of Widewater State Park is beginning to request donations to fund a historical marker within the park that opened last fall, a the confluence of the Potomac River and Aquia Creek, for Palmer Hayden, local African American painter famous for his work during the Harlem Renaissance.

Hayden became famous as a painter in New York City, but he began his life in Widewater, Virginia, located in northeast Stafford County on the Potomac River. He was born on January 15, 1890, Peyton Cole Hedgeman, but later changed his name to Palmer Hayden.

Hayden served nearly a decade in the U.S. Army’s all-African American Company A, 24th Infantry Regiment beginning in 1911. After leaving the Army, he worked his way through formal art training at Columbia University, while working at the post office and then as a janitor.

One of his well-known works titled The Janitor Who Paints was described as a “protest painting” in a 1969 interview, according to the Smithsonian Institute. Hayden had a friend named Cloyd Boykin, an older African American painter who made his living as a janitor. During that interview, Hayden said, “I painted it because no one called Boykin the artist. They called him the janitor.”

His work largely portrayed everyday African American life in both oil and watercolor. He was a prolific artist of his era.

Friends of Widewater State Park Brings improvements to the park

The Friends of Widewater State Park group is making continuous improvements to the park thanks to donations from the local community and volunteer efforts.

It’s a 501C3 public charity that falls under the umbrella organization, the Virginia Association for Parks.

“Basically the state parks in Virginia, most of them have associated friends groups. State parks have a set budget and are highly underfunded for the bare bones that state parks have. Everything above that the ‘friends’ group charities get the money and volunteers to build it. We advocate for the park to help it see its full potential and work with the community to get additional amenities into the park that the public can use.”

— Michelle Mahoney, President of the Friends of Widewater State Park Board of Directors

These groups routinely collaborate and brainstorm to help one another meet their goals for the parks.

“We collaborate regularly in the region…They’ll give us their opinions on how we can do certain things and we tell them what’s working for us… It’s a really good relationship, it’s interesting to see how other parks are building their parks out,” Mahoney said.

Anyone can join the Friends of Widewater State Park. To become a member, the cost is $10 per individual or $20 per family per year.

“Predominantly what we need are people who can actually give time…People with limited physical ability can work on advocacy and planning. Other people build trails. Anyone willing to give time, experience or knowledge is welcome,” Mahoney said.
Upcoming Improvements for Widewater State Park

The “friends” group has big plans for the park over the next year.

“We are working with Patowomeck Indian Tribe of White Oak, Virginia, gathering the material and building an Algonquin longhouse at the park…The dedication is on June 22. We are hoping people will help support it, we’re going to need money to actually enclose it with grass matting,” Mahoney said.

A longhouse, also known as a birch bark house, is a long and narrow house with a grass mat roof traditionally built by Native American tribes.

The group is planning to build a main trunkline trail, for hiking and biking, that will connect both sides of the park.

“The park is compartmentalized between private roads, so we have no real safe way to go from one side of the park to the other…We are mostly wetland area, very swampy, so right now we are working on walking the area with the [Virginia] Department of Conservation and Recreation to see how much will need boardwalk to traverse it.

One of the other projects that we’re embarking on this summer, we have a long pond by the visitors center. We are going to make that a children’s only fishing pond. It will be an exciting learning area for children with fishing poles provided, a worm box and fishing areas along the shore. We are going out and seeking grants and donations for really nice fishing gear.

This is our first year with the park open we’re having fun figuring all this stuff out.”

— Michelle Mahoney, President of the Friends of Widewater State Park Board of Directors

Widewater Park opened on November 8, 2019. The park covers 1,100 acres and two miles of waterfront along Aquia Creek and the Potomac River. In the coming years, park visitors can expect to see improvements like a boat launch, a trail connecting the visitors center with the boat launch and other trails and trails that will take them into nature.