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SUBJECT:
Rowland-Pitzer House; aka the
Mayhew House, aka Wheatland Manor.
Although
this
house was not known as Wheatland Manor until sometime after the
1940s, for clarity's sake
that name is used most often
in this report.
DATE
OF ORIGINAL CONSTRUCTION: The first known
dwelling at this location was a two-story wooden house built by Colonel
Thomas
Rowland and described as being "on the Mays Road, within four miles of
Fincastle. . . .situated between Francis Preston and the west
and William Martin on the east." Construction took place
between December
11, 1798 --when Thomas Rowland purchased the land from Thomas
King-- and 1803 --when the
house and three
outbuildings at this location were insured by the Mutual
Assurance Society of
Virginia. Included in the same policy with the dwelling
was "a separate 2-story
kitchen
with a smoke-house (10
ft. from the house); a
40 x 30 wooden still-house (100 yds from the house); and a
two-story mill (about 400 yds from the house)."
In his renewal policy dated 31
May 1811, Thomas added six buildings, including a one-story log
house, a (gun) powder-mill, blacksmith shop, malt-house and whiskey
distillery.
It was long specualted that Wheatland
Manor was
also built by Thomas, but evidence indicates it may have been built
after his death, by one or all of the three sons --Jesse, Silas and
Joel-- named as heirs of Thomas' plantation.
When Thomas'son Silas died in December
of 1842, his estate consisted of 1184.5 acres, and included "the
dwelling house" where Silas
had lived, a barn, meat house, grist mill and saw mill, all located on
the same property mentioned in Thomas' will. There were also several
smaller houses on the property and identifying the one Thomas insured
in 1804 may never be possible as there is no record of when and by whom
any additions to the original house were made.
LOCATION:
Botetourt County, Virginia; four and one half miles east of
Fincastle on the Wheatland Road. In his declaration for
insurance, Thomas described his
residence, Mount Airy
and its location as ". . . situated in Botetourt County on
the Mays Road within four
miles
of Fincastle. . . situated between Francis Preston to the West and
William Martin (to the) East. " The road was later known as
the "Stage Road" to
Buchanan from Fincastle. It appears that Wheatland Manor was
built approximately 0.4 miles to the southeast of
where Mount Airy was located.
OWNERS:
April
26, 1796 -
Patent to
Thomas King
This land was described in the grant as 400 acres on the waters of
Catawbo
Creek, a branch of James River adjoining the land of Francis Preston.
December 11, 1798 - Thomas
King to Thomas Rowland
December 23,
1813 -
Thomas Rowland (by will) to
his sons Jesse,
Silas & Joel.
March
1843 -Commissioners for the
division of Silas Rolands (sic) land to
Wm S.
Davis Eliza
his wife (formerly Eliza Rowland) and Wm. Robert
Rowland.
Eliza Rowland Davis and
William
Robert
Rowland
were the children of Silas' deceased brother, William
Rowland.
At the time of his death,
Silas owned a large estate consisting of 1184+
acres--some
which he had inherited from his father Thomas, and some
from
his
brother Joel. On this property, was large
dwelling house--Wheatland Manor--
several
smaller dwellings, a barn, meat- house,
grist mill
and saw mill. In his will, the land was divided into 10
parcels and distributed among his heirs, his sister
Mildred
Rowland Gilmore --the last surviving child of Thomas
Rowland--
and the children (and/or their spouses) of
Silas' deceased siblings. Wm. S. Davis (husband
of
Eliza) and William R. Rowland received equal
interests in 150 acres
and "the dwelling house where I live."
October
1848 -
William S.
Davis sold out his interest to his brother-in-law, William
Robert Rowland, who also acquired adjoining land from
fellow heirs of
Silas Rowland: 131 acres which
included the saw mill, and 60 acres which included
the family burial ground. William was not a farmer, however, and in
the census of 1850, William is found living in a hotel in
Fincastle, where he is the constable. He reported real estate valued at
$7700. He married Isabella Ferguson
in August of 1850, shortly after the census was taken. At
the time of his unexpected death in 1853 as a young man of 31, he
owned a general store in Fincastle, probably purchased from the
proceeds of the sale of his Wheatland Road property.
December
22, 1851,
William
R. Rowland sold the house and 335 acres of land (including
the saw
mill) to Rufus Pitzer, and the house came to be
known as the Rowland-Pitzer House.
During the 17 years Rufus lived in the house, he
acquired
addional adjoining acreage from the heirs of Thomas and Silas Rowland
along
with other
properties in Botetourt County. Reportedly, he overextended himself
with debt he could not handle, and
". . .left the
area hurridly, selling his entire estate of some
1,230 acres to Jacob Cronice of Frederick Co., Maryland for $35,000."
April
1,
1868 - Rufus Pitzer to Jacob Cronise.
The
Fincastle Herald,
7 Feb. 1901: Jacob Cronise died at his residence, near Botetourt
(on)January 29th. . .
.
Wheatland Chapel
loses its
founder and oldest member. In March, 1868, Mr. Cronise
bought the Rufus Pitzer farm and moved his family from Frederick, MD,
to this locality. His
large farm was laid out into smaller ones and his children were settled
around him. Feeling the need of school
and religious
services, Luther Chapel was built. . . .About 16 years ago at his
suggestion Wheatland Chapel
was
erected.
January 1876, Jacob
sold to his brother, Americus Cronsise, who sold to
A.H.Thompson
in 1890; Thompson sold to
C.C. Noffsinger in 1898; Noffsinger (by will) to his wife
Alice and children George and Olive. In February
1918, Alice
and George Noffsingers sold their interest to J.
Webster and Olive Noffsinger Williamson.
February
1934 - J. Webster Williamson sold to Horace E.
Mayhew.
1944 -
From Robert Stoner's A Seed-Bed of the
Republic
(1962). "
(Wheatland Manor) . . . owned by C. H. Hammond, whose son Lee
Hammond now occupies the lovely old home. " The
house remained in the Hammond family for almost 50 years.
1992-
The
house was listed with
the National Register of Historic Places as Wheatland
Manor by its current owner, Richard Jones, who is doing
extensive work to save and restore the house.
DESCRIPTION:
" A lovely old brick house sitting
close to Wheatland road. The yard
is sloping and is surrounded by
a sturdy stone wall made of gray limestone. "
According to a 1930's report written by Lavalette Dillon for
the
Virginia Historical Project, the wall was built
by slaves, but this is not entirely accurate. The cut limestone
wall was the work of local artisan, Michael
English from
Ireland.
Along the roadway, is a dry wall of rough stones picked up
in the fields and laid by Pitzer slaves.
Originally
constructed with the clean architectural lines of
the Federalist style, it's the two-story Greek Revival-style front
porch added by Rufus Pitzer
that first strikes
the eye of any
visitor today.
The hand-carved columns and covered porches were
added by
Pitzer
at
a cost in excess of $1000
--a huge amount in the early 1850s.
Lavalette
Dillon wrote, "There are nine
rooms, four
downstairs and five upstairs. The
front hall is very wide with a
broad, opened
stairway to the right. On
each side of the
hall
is an enormous living room . . . each
with a large fireplace with hand-carved
mantels.
At
the far end of the room on the right of
the hall
is a deep
cupboard which is very prettily
carved. Behind this room
is large dining room
and behind that, the kitchen."
The house
has a broad front and an L-wing in the back
that is narrower.
The upstairs contains four large
bedrooms, two
in the front with fireplaces in
each of them, and two in back. The
stairs branch about half-way from the top.
In between the bedrooms is a
small room on a lower level than the rest of the upstairs, with steps
on either side leading to the front and back.
There is
a brick chimney on each end
of the front section and two brick
chim-
neys to the back wing. At the time Lavalette inspected the
house, it boasted 31 windows. The ceiling heights on the main floor are
10
ft. high; the ceiling
upstairs are 8 ft. The house has an attic and two cellars, both lined
with rock walls.
This 2007 photo by
Wesley Kerner
shows the addition to back of the original
house; probably added in the 1850s.
In
1937,
none of the original furniture remained in the
house, but a few of the original locks were there. Any slave
quarters, the
old saw mill and grist mill
were no longer in evidence, but Lavalette reported a new barn was
across the road, which apparently belonged to the same property. The
divison of land in the estates of both Joel and Silas Rowland show that
the Rowland land extended on both sides of what is now
Wheatland Road. Thomas Rowland described it as, "the road to
Buchanan", which is still
true. Hills rise to the back of
the property, and even now, 200+ years later, it must look
somewhat similar to the land Thomas Rowland purchased in 1798.
For
any
comments, corrections, questions, or just to talk about old houses,
please contact me.
This
report is based
partly on one by Lavalette Dillon that is included in the W.P.A.'s Virginia
Historical Inventory
Project, and sponsored
by the Virginia
Conservation Commission under the direction of its Division of History.
Credit to both the Commission and WPA is requested for publication in
whole or part.
* The Virginia Historical Inventory
is available online at LVA's website
Joanne
Merrill Kartak
September 2006 All Rights Reserved.
Any
commercial use without the express consent of the host/author
of these pages is prohibited.
The
material contained on these pages,
including the photographs, is available for the private use
of those researching family origins, but can only
be
reproduced or
published if credit is
given
for the photographs by Mike Gardebled,
photojournalist.
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Sources:
Botetourt County, Virginia: Courthouse records;
Library of VA's Historical
Inventory: Report
by
Lavalette
Dillon, WPA;
Mutual Assurance
Policies, also available at LVA.
Stoner's Seed-Bed of the
Republic;
Summers Annals
of Southwest Virginia;
Sharon Strout for Jacob
Cronise's obit;
Patte
Wood, Rowland
Family
Archives;
Richard Jones, Roanoke, Va.; Report for National Register of Historic Places,
by Daniel Pezzoni, Roanoke, Va.; and Mike
Gardebled of Slidell and New Orleans
for the photographs that bring this report to life.
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