08/29/2020
Hi there. Hope everyone is doing well and staying healthy. I follow the Wi******er Tales page and saw this today. I wanted to make sure everyone got a chance to see it as well.
I always wondered why the area was called Frog eye.
Take care!
FROG EYE - OPEQUON COMMUNITY
Frederick County, VA
When you drive west along Cedar Creek Grade from Valley Avenue for about 3-4 miles, you come to an old community affectionately called, "Frog Eye." This little hamlet that now only consists of an old stone mill, an old forgotten country store, and a brick church...was once a hub of activity.
Opequon was first settled in 1736 by the Glass and Cartmell families and here they would build their ancestral homes and mills. Native Americans used this area prior to the 1700's as a point of reference as Little North Mountain provided a key directional marker for their migratory hunting expeditions into the Shenandoah Valley. Arrowheads found by local farmers date to the Archaic Period (8,000 BC).
By the time the Civil War came to Wi******er, the Glass and Cartmell families no longer had homes here. Maps from this area show the Glass Mill as the Rinker Mill, so we know it changed hands around 1860. In the post Civil War years, the village would see freed slaves start to build new lives here. By the 1880's, the hamlet was still meeting in the old dilapidated Union Church which was built by the Glass family in 1848. The church would be torn down and the new church you see today was built by the late 1930's.
In 1888, ex-slaves, John and Hester Tokes would build a home in Opequon. After their deaths in 1918, their daughters, Sue and Louise, would take their mother's old southern recipes and start the Tokes Inn Restaurant. The restaurant and food was so popular that they had to build additional dining space for customers. In the 1930's. Senator Harry F. Byrd asked Sue Tokes if she would cater all of his political events. In 1940, the Tokes would receive a citation and thank you from the US Treasury Department for catering the War Finance Committees sessions with her boxed fried chicken dinners. Sue died in the late 40's and her nephew (George Davis) kept the Inn going until the early 1970’s. The Tokes home still stands today.
By 1915, the old country store (Hodgson's Market) had a big advertisement sign on their east side wall. The sign was for "Greenback Smoking To***co" and featured three frogs with big bulging eyes. By 1930, the mural had fallen apart. Some mischievous boys took part of the broken sign that had a frog's head with one bulging eye and nailed it to a tree coming into the community. From that point on, people would refer to this area as "Frog Eye."
It is still referred to that today....
