Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

This old church stands in a walnut grove near the road leading from Gloucester Point to Gloucester Court House. It is the second known church at this spot. The first church was built about 1651, upon land donated by Augustine Warner. Some remains of the foundation may still be traced close to the present building, […]

At the head of Ware River, in Gloucester County, is Goshen. The date of the original part of the house is not definitely known, but various authorities have put it between 1750 and 1760. Originally, the house consisted of a large, wainscoted room on each side of a central hall. In 1856 a back building […]

Half a mile from Gloucester Court House stands a quaint colonial building, which was formerly known as Long Bridge Ordinary, now owned and occupied by the Gloucester Woman’s Club. In colonial days when our ancestors travelled in the leisurely manner of coach and four or by stagecoach, many weary travellers stopped at Long Bridge Ordinary […]

This historic estate, one of the earliest king’s grants in Virginia, has recently been purchased from Norwood B. Smith of Palo Alto, California, by Henry L. Bogert, Jr., of Long Island, New York. The estate has passed through many hands, including the late Senator Cochran of Pennsylvania, who restored the mansion, since it left the […]

This Church, one of the oldest in Virginia, is filled with associations of the people whose names are closely allied with the early history of the State. It is situated twenty miles from Washington and a short distance from Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall, whose owners, George Washington and George Mason respectively, were regular attendants […]

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 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 […]

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 […]