When the Yankees came to visit Mrs. Henry Shoaf

In the 1980s, world-renowned artist and hometown boy Bob Timberlake took a piece of land just down the road from where he grew up and turned it into his personal space, with a studio, a log cabin, a barn, and acres of Davidson County backdrop.

If the Yankees had their way, Bob Timberlake’s art studio would’ve been burned down long ago.

Just after the Civil War, just outside of Lexington, Mrs. Henry Shoaf was home tending to a house with a dozen children when one of the kids shouted, “Soldiers are coming! Soldiers are coming!”

In her apron, Mrs. Shoaf walked out of the kitchen and saw a group of Union soldiers on horses, trotting down the path. They tipped their hats at the housewife, real friendly-like.

She knew what they were doing, though. They’d done it to her neighbors and friends.

Lexington is just north of Salisbury, which was home to one of the most notorious prison camps in the South during the war, and Mrs. Shoaf’s husband, along with many men in the area, had enemies in the Union.

Under orders, the soldiers continued moving down the lane.

In her apron, Mrs. Shoaf walked alongside them.

“Mrs. Shoaf,” the lieutenant said, “I don’t want to do this, but I have orders. I have to burn the barn.”

“You can’t,” Mrs. Shoaf pleaded. “We need the barn. How will we survive?”

In her apron, she moved between the men and the barn. The lieutenant ordered her to move aside.

She wouldn’t.

The lieutenant ordered his private to proceed and light his torch. The private got off his horse.

From behind her apron, Mrs. Shoaf pulled a gun and pointed it at the private.

The lieutenant ordered her to put it away and tried to rationalize with her: “Mrs. Shoaf, if you shoot him, we’ll kill you.”

Mrs. Shoaf, now surrounded by the children, kept the barrel aimed at the private.

“You’re not going to burn the barn while I’m alive,” she told the lieutenant. “You may kill me, but I promise you, I’ll kill him, and I’ll get another shot off before you get me, too.”

That barn that she protected so dearly, built in 1809, cared for through the centuries, is now the core building of Bob Timberlake’s studio in Davidson County.

“The lieutenant backed down,” Timberlake says, recalling the story he’s heard for years from a soft-cushioned chair with his feet propped on a coffee table, “and he trotted away, and I have a studio.”

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When the Yankees came to visit Mrs. Henry Shoaf