Verville (Merry Point, Virginia)

Verville is a historic plantation house located near Merry Point, Lancaster County, Virginia. It was built about 1742, and is a 1+1⁄2-story, brick Colonial style dwelling. It has a single-pile, central-passage plan. The gambrel roof and all woodwork was changed to conform with Federal style tastes in the late-18th or early-19th century.[3]

Verville
Verville, HABS Photo
Verville (Merry Point, Virginia) is located in Virginia
Verville (Merry Point, Virginia)
Verville (Merry Point, Virginia) is located in the United States
Verville (Merry Point, Virginia)
LocationVA 611, near Merry Point, Virginia
Coordinates37°43′11″N 76°28′40″W
Area5 acres (2.0 ha)
Built1742 (1742)-1749, 1803-1815
Architectural styleColonial, Federal
NRHP reference No.87000609[1]
VLR No.051-0026
Significant dates
Added to NRHPApril 24, 1987
Designated VLRDecember 9, 1986[2]

In 1668, Major Edward Dale purchased 500 acres of land including a hill that overlooked the confluence of the east and west branches of the Corrotoman River, and in 1674 gave it and one "negro" as a wedding present to his eldest daughter Katherine and her new husband, Capt. Thomas Carter (d. 1700).[4][5] Carter may have been related to planter Col. John Carter, who came from the same village and who in 1654 financed and sold land to Thomas Carter, who had paid tithes on 4 servants in 1653 and gained additional land in 1657 and 1661 for paying for the transportation of other persons to the colony. Thomas Carter became a local justice of the peace in 1663 and after his marriage built a house on the property, which he called "Barford" after the parish in his family's ancestral home near Kempson in Herfordshire, England.[6] Katherine Dale Carter survived her husband by three years and bore seven sons. Her husband's will bequeathed her the negro Dick, and allocated his property mostly to his firstborn son Edward (who would die in 1743, and had two sons who survived him but never paid taxes on more than two tithables), then his next three sons: Thomas (who would die in 1733), John (who vanished from local records in 1703) and Henry (who was England when his father died and would himself die in 1743). Thomas became the most financially successful brother (perhaps in part because of his business relationship with distant kinsman Robert Carter I) and purchased 1023 acres of land in other Northern Neck counties, and his middle brother James moved to Stafford County. Elizabeth Dale Carter's two daughters (Elizabeth and Katherine) and youngest sons Peter and Joseph had received enslaved children or other property from their grandfather Edward Dale.[7]

In 1742 Scots-Irish merchant James Gordon (1714-1768) began purchasing parcels of the Barford plantation, and nearby properties. He also founded the Presbyterian meetinghouse in Lancaster County by 1763, hosted visiting preachers including George Whitefield and Samuel Davies, and kept a diary later published by the College of William & Mary.[8][9] In 1767, Gordon's daughter Mary married Rev. James Waddel in the mansion and the couple took up residence in the "Honeymoon Cottage" nearby.[10] However, the pioneering Presbyterian Gordon died the following year, leaving a widow, several young children, several stores, 1500 acres of land, 58 slaves and personal property worth more than 8000 pound sterling.[11]

In 1782 his son James Gordon Sr. (who died in 1790 and by primogeniture had inherited most of his father's estate, accepted responsibility for raising his younger siblings, and became a member of the House of Delegates) purchased the parcel held by Edward Carter, Dale's great-great-great-grandson. At some point one of the Gordons renamed the plantation "Gordonsville", as well as raised the house's walls to add a gambrel roof and modified the interior woodwork to conform the Federal-era tastes.[12] His son James Gordon Jr. also allied with the Revolutionary cause and represented nearby Richmond County, Virginia in the House of Delegates.

In 1803, Col. James Gordon's children sold the property to delegate (and eventually Judge) Ellyson Currie, who renamed the property "Verville," as well as added wings to each side and renovated the flooring and joists. The house remained in the Currie family for 156 years until it was sold in 1959 to Walter and Elizabeth Oliver, who hired noted restorationist Walter Macumber to restore it.[13]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987.[1]

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Virginia Landmarks Register".
  3. Camille Wells (September 1986). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Verville" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying photo
  4. Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography (1915) Vol. 1 p. 205
  5. Joseph Lyon Miller, "Captain Thomas Carter and his Descendants," Genealogies of Virginia Families from the William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1982) vol 1 p. 598
  6. Genealogies of Virginia Families from Tyler's Quarterly Historical and Genealogical Magazine, (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1981) vol 1 p. 334
  7. Miller, pp. 598-599
  8. Tyler vol. 1 pp. 244-245
  9. "Gordon Family".
  10. NRIS p.3
  11. NRIS p. 7
  12. "Rappahannock Record 26 June 1986 — Virginia Chronicle: Digital Newspaper Archive".
  13. Carolyn H. Jett, Lancaster County, Virginia: Where the River Meets the Bay (Lancaster County History Book Committee and Mary Ball Washington Museum and Library, 2003) p. 134
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