"Hemp Fork"

“I believe we’re always going to have people planting (marijuana) outside.”
-----Pittsylvania County, Virginia, Chief Deputy Maj. Goodson in the July 11, 1998, issue of the Danville Register & Bee

While searching a map for a shortcut from Danville to Smith Mountain, I discovered Hemp Fork, a small creek just west of Chatham. Curious about its name, I went to the clerk’s office in Chatham.

I was given the number of a local historian, whom I called and asked about Hemp Fork. He told me he had discovered Hemp Fork researching Pittsylvania County’s past industries.

"The hemp crop," he said, "was grown luxuriantly throughout the area for more than 300 years and a federal hemp inspector used to reside in the area."

The historian sent me a map of Hemp Fork from the U.S. Dept. of Interior Geological Survey and from the Pittsylvania Progressive Soil Survey.

I also learned that the name Hemp Fork has been changed to West Bearskin Fork. This is typical of our government’s effort to erase hemp’s history from our pages and to supplant the truth about cannabis with their unsubstantiated lies about marihuana.

Cannabis hemp is one of man’s oldest known cultivated crops. Its many resources – food, oils, medicines and nature’s strongest fiber – made it of such importance that, during certain periods of American history, a farmer could be fined and even imprisoned for not growing hemp!

So remember Hemp Fork and these words by George Washington, U.S. president and Virginia farmer: “Make the most of the hemp seed. Sow it everywhere.”

July 1998
© 1998-2001 kgs