Thomas and Sarah Harrison House

Built for Thomas Harrison, who is regarded as the town's founder, this is the oldest house in Harrisonburg. Here the first Rockingham County courts met and Bishop Francis Asbury conducted the county's first Methodist services. The small two-bay house built of coursed rubble limestone has a gable roof pierced by two dormers and an interior-end brick chimney that serves the corner fireplaces of the two first-floor rooms. Situated above a spring, the house was originally entered through the gable end. That entrance is now obstructed by a nineteenth-century building connected to the Harrison House by a stone passage. In addition to its historic value, the building is also a fine illustration of the rich masonry tradition found in the eighteenth-century architecture of the Valley.