Soldier's Rest
- Also Known As: VDHR File No. 21-73
- Vicinity: 0.3 mi N of Fairfax Ave, approximately .5 mi E of jct of US 340 and VA 7
Y/M/D | Person | Association | Description | Composition | Food | Event |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Y/M/D | Person | Association | Description | Composition | Food | Event |
1780/00/00 | ||||||
1800/05/06 | Daniel Morgan | Owner | Daniel Morgan buys Soldier's Rest for 1000 Virginia pounds, sells the property in June 1800 | |||
1830/00/00 |
Particulars for Soldier's Rest: | |
---|---|
Area of Significance | Architecture |
Criteria | Architecture-Engineering |
Sight Category | Building |
Architectural Style | Federal Style |
Owner | Private |
Historic Use | Single dwelling |
Soldier's Rest is a well preserved Federal-style plantation house located on the northeastern outskirts of the town of Benyville in Clarke County, Virginia. Once the center of a larger estate, the property now encompasses twenty-two acres of pastureland. The house is a large, two-story frame structure consisting of a main rectangular block with a long two-part rear wing. The front section of the house was constructed sometime between 1774 and 1785 for William and Rebecca Morton on land first settled by Isaac Pennington in the 1730s. Originally a hall-parlor plan, the main block of the house was remodeled in the 1830s to reflect the late Federal style and the interior space rearranged into a central-passage, single-pile plan. At about the same time, half of the rear wing was added. This was then connected to an existing one-and-a-half-story detached building (probably a kitchen) that was raised to two stories. The interior of Soldier's Rest contains a number of interesting architectural details reflecting several remodelings dating from the late eighteenth century to the Civil War era. Notable as one of the earliest frame dwellings in Clarke County, Soldier's Rest also has historical associations with George Washington and Gen Daniel Morgan. In September 1864, James E Taylor, an artist who followed Union General Philip Sheridan during his Shenandoah Valley Campaign, heard about and visited Soldier's Rest. The property was revered both as the home of Daniel Morgan and the reputed location of George Washington's survey office. Taylor produced two sketches detailing the structures in existence at the time of his visit. These are an invaluable tool for documenting the property as it appeared in the mid-1860s, and illustrate how little the house has changed since then. The log springhouse, identified in one of the sketches as George Washington's office, no longer stands. Its location at a spring southeast of the main house has been identified as a contributing site. The property includes six noncontributing buildings and a noncontributing structure: an early-twentieth-century root cellar; two barns and a chicken coop from the late 1920s; a 1920s corncrib; a 1930s garage; and a 1960s bunk feeding complex. The grounds of Soldier's Rest are surprisingly pristine and include a residential yard around the main house with pastureland beyond. Buck Marsh Run passes through the northeastern comer of the property and is joined by a branch that starts at the spring southeast of the house. - NRHP, 4 April 1996
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