Weaver House

During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the plantation on which this house stands, like many others in the county, was owned by a series of absentee landlords and usually managed by an overseer. In 1825, absentee landlord Hubbard Wyatt of Walnut Grove (GV16) sold the six-hundred-acre tract to James Blanks, who owned about twenty additional tracts. In 1828, Blanks died and left all of his land and slaves to Martha Ann B. Wickham, a free woman of color, and her children. When the estate of Blanks was settled and his assets sold in 1833, six hundred acres were purchased by one of the appraisers, Jarrad Weaver. He built for himself a typical house of the region, a two-story, single-pile frame structure with a hall-parlor plan. His plantation prospered, and soon he expanded his residence by one bay. Other additions include a one-story portico and a one-story rear section. Weaver's tall, thin house with its long windows and narrow brick chimneys is Federal in massing and in details, both inside and out. This prolonged use of Federal styling, well into the mid-nineteenth century, is another regional characteristic. Weaver prospered and built a thriving mill that stood nearby. When he died, he had more than twenty slaves as well as carriages, farming equipment, cotton seed, and crops of peas, oats, and corn.