Category: Virginia Historical Homes

The original grant for Poplar Grove was from George III to Samuel Williams, and his son Thomas, who built the oldest part of the present house in 1782. About 1792 it was bought by John Patterson, and at his death passed to his daughter, Mrs. Christopher Tompkins, the mother of “Captain” Sally Tompkins, whose home […]

Rosewell was built by Mann Page, who commenced it about 1725 and completed it in 1730, when he died. It was said to be the largest house in Virginia at the time it was built, and for many years afterwards. It was built of brick, with imported marble lintels and window sills, and was three […]

The home of the late Mr. and Mrs. Robert Colgate Selden was purchased in 1830, being a part of the original Robins grant, and has been retained by the Selden family since that date, being now in the possession of Mr. and Mrs. Henry A. Williams, the latter a granddaughter of Mr. and Mrs. Selden. […]

Belleville, on North River in Gloucester County, was an original grant from the crown of England, in the early settlement of Virginia, to two friends, John Boswell and John Booth, the latter having, already, an adjoining grant on Ware River. These two gentlemen for many years were wholesale tobacco buyers, doing a customhouse business between […]

White Marsh, which is on the Tidewater Trail in Gloucester County, is believed to have been built about 1800; and in 1820 John Tabb, son of Philip Tabb, of Toddsbury, bought out his sister-in-law’s portion of the estate, and with his wife, who was Matilda Prosser, went there to live. It was then that the […]

AT a comfortable distance from one of Gloucester County’s modern highways and reached by a narrow, rustic lane, lies one of the Old Dominion’s celebrated early homes, Toddsbury. It was founded by Thomas Todd, who came to this country during the early part of the seventeenth century, and was a part of the generous acreage […]

Upper Brandon, so called to distinguish it from the older plantation of Brandon of which it was once a part, lies on the south side of the James River. The situation is a fine one. It is on a gradual slope lying close to the river and heavily timbered in willow oaks, ash, and magnolia. […]

The bit of history that goes with this house tells that the plantation came into being in 1616 under a vast grant of land made to Captain John Martin, one of the adventurous companions of John Smith on his first voyage to Virginia. Martin, however, sold or abandoned his holdings after a brief owner-ship, for […]

Eastover is five miles below Claremont on the James River. The house is about 150 feet back from the steep, wooded, hundred-foot bank, directly opposite the mouth of the Chickahominy River. There is no lovelier view than that afforded from the front lawn. Over a five-mile stretch of water the panorama of Green Spring shore […]

Close to the sleepy village of that name, Claremont, on the James, is among the oldest and most historic places in Virginia. According to tradition, as early as 1649, an estate of some twelve thousand acres was patented in this region by Arthur Allen, who was a member of the royal house of Han-over and […]