Aetna Hill is a house in

Midlothian Midlothian (; gd, Meadhan Lodainn) is a historic county, registration county, lieutenancy area and one of 32 council areas of Scotland used for local government. Midlothian lies in the east-central Lowlands, bordering the City of Edinburgh, ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

. It was built soon after 1791 by Thompson Blunt, who had just married Frances Morrisette, a granddaughter of Pierre Morrisette, one of the early

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

settlers. This original building consisted of "a 1 1/2 story Huguenot-style structure with a three-bay facade and twin front doors". In 1831 Thompson Blunt retired to

Powhatan County Powhatan County () is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 30,033. Its county seat is Powhatan. Powhatan County is included in the Greater Richmond Region. The James River forms the cou ...

and left Aetna Hill and its lands to his daughter Moriah and her husband, Elijah Brummall. A large addition was made to the house around 1840, when a -story, side passage house adjoining the west side of the original house was completed. In 1928, the house was in the possession of a local preacher named Robert H. Winfree. How the house came into the possession of Rev. Winfree is unclear, but it might have been inherited by his wife, Maria P. Watlington Winfree. Maria was the daughter of John O. W. Watlington and Ann Maria Brummall, who was the daughter of Elijah and Moriah. Winfree was the pastor of nearby Jerusalem Baptist Church (later renamed Winfree Memorial Baptist Church, in honor of him and his father David B. Winfree, Jerusalem's first pastor), where he preached at for more than 30 years. The Midlothian and Chesterfield County historian, Bettie Woodson Weaver, also lived here with her mother, who was Robert H. Winfree's daughter, in her early years. After going to college and marrying Albert Weaver, Bettie returned to Aetna Hill after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

and started renovated the building over the next three years, adding heating, electricity, and indoor plumbing to the 150-year-old house. The facade of the original 1791 house was altered when one of the front doors was taken off and replaced with a wide double window. Weaver lived at the house until very shortly before her death, writing and publishing 11 books and countless articles. In the present day, Aetna Hill is largely untouched and the main house appears as it did in the 1840s, with slight alterations. Its lands are one of the largest sections of still standing forests in central Midlothian.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Chesterfield County, Virginia