USA > Virginia > City of Virginia Beach > City of Virginia Beach > Old houses in Princess Anne, Virginia > Part 5
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London Bridge Creek, head of Eastern Branch Lynnhaven River
Home of Mrs. R. C. Perkins, London Bridge
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larity ceases, for, unlike the Huggins house, this home has been revamped and enlarged, not once, but several times. In this evolution a sharp roof story-and-half house has become full two story in front with an elongated roof in the rear covering an addition whose first floor area is quite as great as the ground area of the original building.
Mrs. Perkins is one of four sisters (Mrs. Per- kins, Mrs. James, Mrs. Spence, Mrs. White) all daughters of James Edward Land. Their father planted four cedar trees in front of the house, naming one tree for each daughter. There are three trees living, and the names are the names of the three living sisters.
James Edward Land bought this plantation of 300 acres from Bennett Land in 1840. Bennett Land's wife was Sarah Gaskins, sister of James Gaskins, from whom Bennett Land and his wife purchased the tract. In 1802 James Gaskins had married Nancy Shephard. There is a tradition that this couple built the house when they married. This we do not believe because the original end of the house shows a type of brickwork of a much earlier time.
The Gaskins were living in the London Bridge neighborhood as early as the middle of the eigh- teenth century, having purchased land from the Keelings prior to 1750. It has been difficult to trace this particular acreage because it was devised in several generations of the Gaskins, not by acre- age, but by chopped lines of trees, a portion north or south, as the case might be, of London Bridge Creek, where it flows under the bridge.
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Of the following items we are sure: London Bridge Creek is the head water of the Eastern Branch of the Lynnhaven; this territory was in- cluded in one of the grants to Capt. Adam Keel- ing ; in 1756 Job Gaskins gave to his son Lemuel the tract on the north side of the road that leads to London Bridge, beginning at the foot of the bridge and along the meanders of the creek that part it from the land of Mr. Robinson &c., back to London Bridge; at the same time son Charles is given the lands to the south; Charles Gaskins wills to his son George his plantation; in 1837 James Gaskins sells to Bennett Land 300 acres running under London Bridge inherited from his (Gaskins) father, George Gaskins.
The two gable ends of the front portion of the house, as it stands today, show conclusively by the bonding of the brick and the mortar used, that the construction took place years apart. It may be that one end became unsound, was torn down and rebuilt along a newer pattern. Perhaps this may account for the tradition that the James Gaskins, whose wife was Nancy Shepherd, did the build- ing. The newer end is of a period not antedating 1800. It is most probable that at this time the house became a full two stories, the additions on the rear coming from time to time as the family grew, or some other exigency, made the enlargement of the roof tree appear an economic family need.
About forty years ago the ship "Dictator" went ashore near Virginia Beach. It was during a fear- ful storm. There are two relics preserved in the county from the wreck, one is the ship's bell. It is
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hanging close under the eaves about midway in front of the old house in which Mrs. Perkins lives, the oldest part of which house was built by a Gas- kins, we believe Job Gaskins, prior to his death in 1756. The other relic of the "Dictator" is the old figurehead, so long time familiar sight near the ocean at Seventeenth Street, Virginia Beach. In days gone by sailors set much store by the symbol carried just under the bowsprit. The custom seem- ingly has become entirely obsolete. The figurehead was abolished in the British navy in 1796; how- ever, in the U. S. navy the custom continued many, many years longer. Indeed the Cincinnati and Iris kept theirs until a few years ago when they them- selves were forced to give way to modern construc- tion necessary to meet modern needs.
Of the nine sharp roof houses of the oldest style of architecture now extant in Princess Anne we have given, to the best of our belief, the true history of seven. The two remaining will be dis- cussed in later chapters, one for the reason that it is part of a composite of homes on the Broad Bay farm, and we believe it will be more interest- ing to talk about this composite as a sequence of buildings, rather than as disjointed units. The other house is at Kempsville, the only old town left in the county. It seems but fair to group in one chapter all the places of interest in and about the village.
CHAPTER VII
UCCEEDING the sharp roof, story-and- half phase of building in Princess Anne there is an interlude around 1725-35, in which span two homes, each of an un- usual type, were built. Next to these we find the homes built of the gambrel roof and of the Georgian type, according, we take it, to the taste and pocket- book of the builder. For the time we shall pass the "strange interlude" in building, and present some of the older of the gambrel roof type.
It is said that one paid tax in colonial times on a dwelling in ratio to the number of stories under the roof. This is often given as an explana- tion of the extreme popularity of the gambrel roof as a successor to the sharp roof, when our colonial gentlemen and their good wives felt the need of more space in the sleeping quarters of the family. For legally and technically the gambrel is a story- and-half, with the advantage of greater clearance in the overhead.
The English form of gambrel has the pitch from the eaves much steeper and shorter than does the Dutch form. Both are adaptations of the roof originally designed by Francois Mansard, the dis- tinguished French architect of the seventeenth century. We are told that the gambrel was used in New England as early as 1680. From observa- tion and comparison of coincident phases of build- ing in Princess Anne with the dates assigned, by
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those who know, to similar buildings among our sister states to the north, we believe that Princess Anne was ever slow to adopt new modes.
The gambrel mode was developed in Princess Anne with four brick walls; with both gable ends of brick, front and rear of board; one gable end of brick, with other gable, front and rear of board; all four walls of board, with massive outside chim- neys of brick, just as seemed most expedient, no doubt. Under these four variants we shall proceed to place the twenty-odd gambrel roof houses now standing in the county, every house of which was used as a home before 1800.
South of the Eastern Branch of the Elizabeth River, on and near a creek called King's Creek, nowadays known as Murray's Creek, David Mur- ray, Michael Macoy, and William Whitehurst, each in his own right and name, obtained grants for land after 1650. David Murray and Michael Macoy were kin, for in his will made in 1680 Michael leaves his son James, one of many, by the way, in the care of "my father David Murrah." A patent of some 767 acres was taken out by David Murray in 1683. A part of this patent became a part of the farm on the Indian River turnpike called "Level Green." This plantation was the home or manor plantation of the E. H. Herbert, who died in 1862.
In 1833 E. H. Herbert began buying land in this neighborhood, piece after piece, until his acres stretched away on all sides around a quaint little brick house. Soon Mr. Herbert built immediately in front of this old house a very handsome home, typical of the "ante-bellum" days in Virginia. Since
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then the new house on "Level Green" has com- pletely overshadowed the one in which lawyer Handcock lived and raised a family in the years preceding and during the American Revolution. But we believe the brick house is even older than that.
In 1736 Richard Standley and his wife Mary, who was a sister of John Murray, and with him coparcenor, sold 180 acres of land south of the Eastern Branch to William Handcock. By follow- ing this title we found it to be a part of the David Murray tract as above related. In this record we found no mention of a house. But Mr. Handcock in 1752 bought from Benj. Dingley Grey 1021/2 acres on which there was a house. This tract Mr. Grey had bought from Thomas Bolitho, to whom it came from his father John Bolitho, who bought a part of the Michael Macoy patent. On this tract there was a house, probably the Bolitho home.
The William Handcock who made the above purchases made a will in 1759, leaving all his land south of the Elizabeth River in Princess Anne to his son William. Out of this devise emerged a 200- acre tract with house, which by various changes in ownership, in the course of the next fifty years after the decease of son William, became the property of E. H. Herbert.
William Handcock, son of William, made a will in 1782. From this we learn that his wife was Anne, his children were John, to whom he left the home plantation ; William, to whom he left a tract called the "Denn ;" Simon, Tully, to whom he bequeathed his law books, and a daughter Anne Robinson
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Handcock. In ten years John Handcock sold to "Pade" Parker 200 acres whereon his father Wil- liam Handcock had resided. Passing quickly through several ownerships, one of which was a David Murray, the circuit, or rather chain, links with the point at which we started, E. H. Herbert.
Mr. Herbert died in 1862, leaving a wife Mar- garet ; a daughter, Mrs. Laura McAlpine; Abner T., whose wife was Charlotte; an infant daughter, Ellen C .; daughters Alice and Mary N .; a son, Arthur E .; a sister, Ellen Tatem. Mrs. McAlpine is still well remembered in Norfolk, singing, even at the age of more than ninety, delightful little songs in her own charming way, on occasions when friends of her younger days met together in cele- brations. Abner T. Herbert was the gallant Con- federate soldier, better known as "Buck" Herbert, who died in 1929 at the ripe old age of eighty-five.
The old house on "Level Green," which was probably used as the home of the Handcocks for a longer period than by any of the other owners, had originally two rooms downstairs, from one of which the steps lead to the rooms above. A room was added, most probably for the kitchen or dining room. This we say on account of the large fire- place.
All the walls are brick, 9" thick, Flemish bond- ing, with gambrel roof. The sills are hewn and pegged. The fireplace is 5'3" wide, the ceilings in the two-room part downstairs are 6' 4", in the ad- dition the ceiling is 6'. Probably Mr. Handcock made the addition. Having five children it would seem that the new room was a necessity.
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The old brick house on Level Green
As we said, Mr. Herbert built the later house, whose date we fix at 1833, for the reason that Mrs. Wilson tells us that her father ("Buck" Herbert) told her he was born in the new house in 1844, some nine years after it was built by his father. It is entirely probable that John Bolitho built this for his home, his son Thomas selling it to Benj. Dingley Grey.
There is such a feeling of satisfaction in finding that from the coming to Virginia of Henry Wood- house in 1637 even to the present day the Wood- house family of Virginia in a large measure has stayed by its ancestral hearthstones. The five hun- dred acres granted to Henry Woodhouse in 1637 is described as being within the mouth of the second bay proceeding from the Long Creek on the east- ward side of Chesapeake. We take this as locating his land below Broad Bay and on Linkhorn Bay. The acres stretched away to the westward and north of Wolf's Snare. We understand from Mr. Shep-
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herd Woodhouse of Princess Anne that a portion of this tract remained in the family until a very few years ago. However, there are many members of the family living on beautiful farms in and near this location. A family, which, through some nine or ten generations, stays home, remaining during the passing centuries among the first families, is of more than passing interest.
Capt. Henry Woodhouse, son of Sir Henry of Waxham and Anne, his wife, daughter of Sir Nicholas Bacon, the Lord Keeper, was at one time governor of Bermuda. Capt. Henry claimed that Charles the First promised him the governorship of Virginia, and accordingly made petition to the king in 1634/5 for a fulfillment of the promise. Doomed to disappointment he purchased land in Bermuda and was governor of that island. This land he had purchased he left by will to his son Henry. This son Henry was born about 1607, and he or his father (the record is not clear) settled in Virginia in 1637. There is a will probated in 1655 distributing to the sons and daughters of Henry Woodhouse Virginia and Bermuda possessions. This Henry's wife was named Maria; the sons were Henry, Horatio, John, William; daughters were Elizabeth, Mary who married Edward Att- wood, Rachel and probably Judith.
In 1640 we find Henry Woodhouse a vestry- man of Linhaven Parish. From volume 1, page 140, foot note 2, of Mr. Edward James' Lower Norfolk County Antiquary we take the following interest- ing item. "At the present time, May the first, 1896, after a lapse of 256 years, three of the descendants
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of Henry Woodhouse bearing his name are ves- trymen of the Eastern Shore Chapel, Princess Anne County (built 1754), Judge John J. Woodhouse, Jonathan Woodhouse and Maj. John T. Wood- house." Of the three gentlemen just named, Mr. Jonathan Woodhouse is still living, making his home in Norfolk with his daughter, Mrs. J. W. C. West (Adelaide Woodhouse) .
At least three generations of Jonathan Wood- houses made their home in the house now owned by Mr. Willie Butt. We know that a Captain Jonathan was the son of Major Jonathan, son of Captain William, Sr. On each side of the front of this home are the letters, W.W.P. 1760.
From the description in deeds of an adjoining property we know that in 1756 Horatio Woodhouse (one of the many) bounded a certain fifty-acre tract on the east. When this same acreage changed owners in 1788 Captain Jonathan is recorded as on the eastern boundary. It has been disappoint- ing to us not to be able to prove conclusively that
Jonathan Woodhouse Plantation Home, 1760
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Capt. William Woodhouse, whose wife was Pem- brook, built the home. In this we have not been successful.
This building is of the decidedly Dutch gam- brel. The angle at the eaves is more acute than the corresponding angle in any of the other gambrel houses now standing in Princess Anne. All four walls are of brick, Flemish bond, and 14" thick. The height of the walls on the outside from the ground to the eaves is 12'. The two rooms (there is no hall) on the first floor measure 10' to the ceiling. The front and rear windows are deeply recessed. Each measures 38" in width, 6'8" in height. The mantles are very high with narrow shelf. A pretty chairboard, wide floor planks, old doors with H & L wrought iron hinges, lead one to believe that the original woodwork has been preserved through the years. The wood is all heart pine.
The house faces east, the south end to the lane leading to the main road. The larger room is on the south and it is into this that the front door gives entrance. By means of a blind stairway in the smaller room on the north one goes above to the rooms directly under the gambrel. In the room immediately reached there is a brick well by the chimney, beneath the floor. This well is several feet deep. Very probably it was made for the safe keep- ing of valuables.
The strange hiding place and the Dutch gambrel make this house just a little different, stimulating one's imagination to find the answer to the whim that caused the Woodhouse (Mr., Capt., or Maj .? ) to build differently.
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Maybe Wolf's Snare was first called Oliver Van Hick's Creek-sometimes spelled Yan Hick's. In 1651 Ensign Thomas Keeling patented 700 acres on Oliver Van Hick's Creek. Where this creek was, seemed for a long time to defy solution. No map would divulge the secret, no amount of searching lessened the mystery. Crossword puzzles are as child's play in comparison with seeking the answer to some of the land problems which arise in trac- ing ownership in these early days. Many times the name given to a location remained unchanged dur- ing the years. Sometimes the name changed with each new owner's whim. Then it is only by accident one stumbles on the key.
Just such a piece of luck did we have in tracing the title of a very pretty old house known as the Jacob Hunter home. In the chain we found two loose ends which linked perfectly.
In 1843 Jacob Hunter bought from John James and his wife Mary a 300-acre tract known as "Pallets." For this Mr. Hunter traded a house in town valued at $2,000, a negro girl valued at $250, and $250 in cash. This two thousand dollar house was in the city of Norfolk and was the property of his wife and his wife's mother. As its name indicates the tract he brought was part of the Pallet planta- tion of 600 acres, which was devised by John Pallet in 1719 to his son John. He calls it the Wolf's Snare Plantation.
The second John, in 1777, divides the 600 acres between two sons, Matthew and John. John gets the western side. We believe that Matthew's part had the house on it, because the will set forth that
ยท
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the mother was to have the use, during her widow- hood, of the place, the furniture, utensils, &c.
There were three other sons beside Matthew and John. They were to be cared for during child- hood. These infant children were William, "Henery" and Gisborn. There was also an unborn child. The only daughter was Elizabeth Cannon. Father John in his will desires that his wife "bring up and Scout my youngest children." Just what the term "Scout" implied we are at a loss to know.
The Matthew Pallet known as senior in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, sold the plantation to his son Matthew, Jr. for $1,000. It was from the heirs of this Matthew Pallet that Mr. James bought the estate bounded by Wolf's Snare for $1,395. At that time, 1836, George M. Lovett was living here. This, of course, was prior to the time at which George M. came into his part of his grandfather Lovett's plantation and Stratton Island. Of this we will tell you more in a later chapter.
No doubt you are wondering what this has to do with Oliver Van Hick's Creek. In 1714 Adam Keeling sold to John Pallet the Wolf's Snare Plantation of 600 acres, all that was left of a patent of 700 acres formerly granted to the said Adam's grandfather, whereon his (Adam's) deceased father lived, being bounded by Wolf's Snare Creek and marshes.
In 1651 Ensign Thomas Keeling patented 700 acres on Oliver Van Hick's Creek. John Keeling, son of Capt. Adam, son of Ensign Thomas, in 1682 patented 2,137 acres in the Parish of Lynnhaven, 700 acres of which being on Oliver Van Hick's
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Creek. In his will Capt. Adam leaves a certain 1,400-acre tract to his son John, provided John make out unto his brother Adam Keeling a "di- vident or tract of Land about 2000 acres Lately pattented in the name & to the use of my said Sone Jno. Keeling, being that land that now my mother lives on and called London Bridge." And so it comes about that if the patent for 700 acres each time named the creek as Oliver Van Hick, then, when two generations later an Adam Keeling sells the remaining 600 acres of the patent, he calls the creek "Wolf's Snare," we feel justified in the con- clusion that the name had changed during the fifty years the Keelings had been living in the county. Even today Wolf's Snare and London Bridge are so called. Let us hope that they may so continue to be named.
The house on Pallets, or Wolf's Snare Planta- tion, or the Jacob Hunter farm, was surely built by the Pallets, probably by the John who died in 1777. Today there is an unmistakable air of for-
Pallets, or Wolf's Snare Plantation
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lornness about the house as the colored tenant shows you around. He seems to recognize the fact that the home has seen better days.
There are four brick walls of Flemish bonding, which, sad to relate, at some time were white- washed. This coating now has a pinkish tinge, not becoming, we assure you, to the complexion of the handsome old bricks. Above the four walls is a gambrel roof, the pitch of which is very, very steep -almost perpendicular. Beneath is a cellar, half above ground, with a sleek clay floor.
Notice to what height the chimney stacks rise above the roof. There is a large hall with well proportioned stairway; one room downstairs on each side of the hall; the same plan obtains on the second floor. All the old mantelpieces have been taken out, and that, of course, detracts from the beauty one has a right to expect. From the picture it is very obvious that a doorway by the south chimney has been bricked-in in recent years, thus made into a window. It is more than probable that this was the way to the outside kitchen. The fine old trees in the yard go a long way toward helping one conjure up a picture of what the place was in its hey-day.
Jacob Hunter's widow became Sarah A. Cor- nick. When she sold the plantation she reserved a burying ground for her and her family in the "rear of the Manor House."
There is another house of whose date of build- ing we are sure. It is the home of Francis Ackiss, on the Pungo Ridge road. This locality is now called "Blossom Hill."
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A very pretty conceit accounts for the name. In the spring of the year there is a veritable riot of color, exquisitely beautiful, when the tender foliage is just putting out, and the buds and the blossoms of the many wild flowers hereabouts flaunt them- selves in gay array beside the road. People familiar with the section make the trip annually and are always repaid by the lavish display nature has provided in this festival of blossoms.
The Ackiss home, not so large as some, meas- uring 19'2"x32'3", is set well back from the road, and faces the west. The walls are all brick, Flemish bond, of 19" thickness, with gambrel roof. On the southern gable are the letters F. A. 1782. In this year Francis Ackiss bought an acreage on Pungo Ridge, and from the legend on the house, we believe he immediately set about his building.
In the southern room downstairs (there are two rooms down-two upstairs) is a pine corner closet. We were told it was made for the first mis- tress of the home. It is considered a part of the
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Francis Ackiss Home, Blossom Hill, 1782
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premises and may not be removed. This house, in its dilapidation, has not even the softening influ- ence of trees in the yard.
The property has for many, many years be- longed to a Fentress estate. It has been rented from year to year, changing tenants frequently. There is such a difference in the aspect of a building when it is a veritable home and when it is only a house in which someone sojourns for a term of years as one of a succession of tenants.
The Ackiss family is also one of the oldest families in the county, and one that has always been prominent in church and civil affairs. Col. John Ackiss was a vestryman of Lynnhaven Parish in 1772. John Ackiss was a member of the Princess Anne Committee of Safety in 1775.
Passing to the other extreme, we shall next tell you of a house which is probably the largest and also the best known of all the gambrel type homes. Before examining this title we were prepared to be led by our research into the history of almost any of the old families of the county. We had heard this plantation referred to as the ancestral home of so many different families.
When this was the home of the Francis Lands the village nearest was London Bridge, the Virginia Beach Boulevard, at this point, was the "Kemps- ville road to London Bridge." Across the road was the William Hunter Plantation (Mr. W. G. Win- ter's home is on a part of the Hunter plantation, we think), and here began the road leading down Little Neck to the Glebe. In Order Book No. 7, under the date of 1757, Francis Thorowgood Land
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petitioned the court to close the road that led from Robert Huggin's plantation on the south side of the said Land's plantation to the main road.
Before Renatres, or Renatus, Land made a will in 1680, while living "in Linhaven Pish, Lower Norfolk County, in Virga.," there was a Francis Land in the parish. At a court sitting in 1647, Francis Land was made a warden of Lynnhaven Parish. In 1654 he patented 1,020 acres of land. Renatus Land had a brother Francis, so he says in his will.
In 1736 a Francis Land had a son, Francis Thorowgood Land. This son lived on the place we are discussing, and we believe he built the house. Francis M. Land (son of Francis Thorowgood Land) was the next owner of this plantation of 689 acres. On the death of Francis M., in a chancery suit, the plantation was divided between his two daughters. To Anne Land was set aside 389 acres to the westward along the road; to John N. Walke, whose wife was Mary E. Land, was set aside 300 acres with the house, known as the "home tract." This home tract passed from the Walke family when the late Dr. Frank Anthony Walke, of Nor- folk, sold to John Petty.
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