In her long skirt and high-button shoes, photographer Marie Kendall climbed the steeple of the Congregational Church carrying her view camera and glass plates to capture this view of Norfolk looking toward Haystack Mountain. Although the photograph is undated, it was likely taken in mid-March of 1888 after the historic blizzard dumped snow for 36 hours and finally subsided. Look closely at the landscape and you will see some familiar buildings. Whitehouse on the Stoeckel property (now Yale in Norfolk) is in the foreground. Although the Royal Arcanum (now Wood Creek Bar & Grill) at the corner of Station Place had yet to be built, Village Hall (now Infinity Hall) is visible with its tower partly hidden behind a tall pine. Beyond that to the right, look for a white house, which still stands on Shepard Road, and the first Center School, now the site of the Norfolk Volunteer Fire Department. A wooden belvedere sits atop Haystack Mountain, replaced decades later by the stone tower that is there today.

—Ann Havemeyer

Photo courtesy of the Norfolk Historical Society.