Morefield Mine, Amelia

Amazonite is microcline feldspar that happens to be green, and in the 20th century this county was still known for it.

The stone came from the Morefield Mine at Amelia Court House, the seat of Amelia County in the Virginia Piedmont, a census-designated place of 965 people at the 2020 census. The US Geological Survey records tantalum as the primary commodity at Amelia Courthouse, which is the other half of what these pegmatites are known for.

The town was named in 1735 for Princess Amelia of Great Britain, second daughter of King George II, and grew up in country developed for plantations of mixed crops. In the 19th century spas were built around the mineral springs nearby and became vacation destinations, reachable once the railway arrived. Among the planters who brought their families to those spas was Robert E. Lee.

Lee came back under very different circumstances. The Richmond and Danville Railroad, extended to the village by the 1850s, was a crucial Confederate supply line, and after retreating from Petersburg in 1865 Lee spent 4 and 5 April at Amelia Court House waiting for supplies from Richmond that never came. What arrived instead was a train carrying government documents. His army's last major engagement followed on 6 April at the Battle of Sayler's Creek, on the county border, and he surrendered at Appomattox Court House on 9 April.

One consequence of that week is unusual and quietly valuable. The Union forces chasing Lee did not stop to burn the courthouse records, and the iron shutters and brick construction protected what was inside, so Amelia's clerks still hold documents predating the Civil War that most Virginia courthouses lost.

The county celebrates itself each May with Amelia Day, on the Saturday before Mother's Day, started in the 1980s to mark the town's founding. In 2003 it was cancelled when an F1 tornado struck the courthouse green the day before and took most of its trees.