As a thirteen-year-old, Robert Blackwell came to Ashland on a railroad handcar to begin his education, and his seventy year association with Randolph-Macon College.

As President of Randolph-Macon College from 1939 to 1967, Dr. Moreland is credited with building the enrollment, reputation, physical plant, and financial stability of the school.

The large stone blocks lined up alongside the railroad tracks in front of Randolph-Macon College at approximately 307 N. Center St. were originally on a train headed for Washington, D.C.

The One Ashland, Many Voices Oral History Project web site at the McGraw-Page Library, Randolph-Macon College, Ashland, VA has audio interviews captured in 2008 with over 50 Ashland residents.

“Boys died like flies,” recalled resident Nancy Shackelford. She remembered that the college doctor depended upon volunteer help to care for the students. “He said that half of those boys owed their lives to the women in Ashland who took their servants [to the college campus] and gave them hot soup and tended to the medication and every­thing.”