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 from Jamestown to the Chickahominy, over to Dancing Point, Tettington and Sandy Point, fascinates, while the large bay of Eastover and the splendid beach recede from view along the south bank, and beyond Claremont wharf the Brandon shore line completes the picture.
From the type of construction of the central part of the house it is probable that this portion was built in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Two wings were added to the original. From each room one enjoys a glorious view of the James River. There is a small, formal, boxwood garden between the house and the story-and-a-half quarter-house, a frame building with dormer windows. The lawn slopes east and west to deep, wooded ravines which complete the combination of beautiful woodland and water.
The first record of this property appears in a deed from Colonel Henry Browne to George Jordan, when in 1657 he conveyed four hundred acres from the western part of his land, Pipsco Plantation, which was granted him in 1637. It was bounded on the west side by the lands of Colonel John Flood, patented in 1638. Documents left by George Jordan indicate that there was a dwelling on the property.
The plantation passed through the hands of many owners. In 1785 Charles Harrison, son of Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley, sold his inheritance to one Robert Watkins. In 1843 the property was willed to John A. Selden, Jr., of Charles City County, who at one time owned Westover.
The transfers varied in acreage and boundary from time to time, and the plantation now includes the original property deeded to George Jordan from Colonel Henry Browne and the land patented by Colonel John Flood, and contains twenty-five hundred acres, seven hundred of which are cleared; the remainder is in woodlands. Eastover is the home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Henry Ochsner.