Bloomsbury Farm (also known as Harris Farm) was an 18th-century timbered framed house, one of the oldest privately owned residences in
Spotsylvania County,
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 ...
. The house was originally built by the Robinson family sometime between 1785 and 1790.
It was architecturally significant for its eighteenth-century construction methods and decorative elements. The surrounding location is also significant as the site of the last engagement between
Confederate
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* Confederate state or confederation, a union of sovereign groups or communities
* Confederate States of America, a confederation of secessionist American states that existed between 1 ...
and
Union
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* Union (set theory), in mathematics, a fundamental operation on sets
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forces in the
Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse
The Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, sometimes more simply referred to as the Battle of Spotsylvania (or the 19th-century spelling Spottsylvania), was the second major battle in Lt. Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Maj. Gen. George G. Meade's 1864 ...
on May 19, 1864.
Bloomsbury Farm was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...
in May 2000. The house was demolished in December 2014 by Leonard Atkins, a nearby resident who purchased the property in November 2014 ostensibly to restore it. Atkins cited the building's supposedly poor condition and public safety as the reasons for the abrupt demolition, and he planned to replace the historic house with a new one commensurate in style and value with the modern houses in the surrounding development in which he lives.
The farm was removed from the National Register in 2017.
[.]
Design and construction
The house at Bloomsbury Farm began as a late 18th century, single-pile (only one room between the front façade and the rear walls), two-story house. In the early 1800s, the layout of the house was changed when a central hallway was created. Bloomsbury is of braced frame construction. The framing used for the house was hewn and pit-sawn beams and rafters. Wrought nails, hand-hammered from iron, were used as fasteners in the original building. The interior of the walls were filled with brick
nogging. The house has two exterior-end chimneys of brick laid in
Flemish-bond
Brickwork is masonry produced by a bricklayer, using bricks and mortar. Typically, rows of bricks called '' courses'' are laid on top of one another to build up a structure such as a brick wall.
Bricks may be differentiated from blocks by ...
pattern. The foundation is fieldstone and uses
dragon beams to support the east end of the first floor
summer beam.
History
Benjamin Robinson inherited the land on which Bloomsbury Farm is located and built the house sometime between the time he obtained the land and his death in 1790. The farm remained with his widow and then their descendants until 1854, when it was sold to Clement Harris. During the time that Harris owned the farm, it produced of tobacco along with wheat, Indian corn, and oats. The farm remained in the possession of the Harris family until 1883 when it was sold by Thomas Harris to Charles and Charlotte Phillips. Harris repurchased the land again in 1888. In 1913 the property was sold to a holding company and, in 1917, the farm was acquired by Robert Purvis. James McGee bought the land in 1927 and Bloomsbury became a dairy farm.
McGee and his family sold milk as the Bloomsbury Sanitary Dairy, selling raw Grade A milk in
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Fredericksburg is an independent city located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 27,982. The Bureau of Economic Analysis of the United States Department of Commerce combines the city of Fredericksburg wi ...
, until 1937 when they switched to selling bulk cans of milk. The family continued in the dairy business until 1966 when the
Jersey cattle were sold.
Battle of Harris Farm
On May 19, 1864, Bloomsbury Farm was the site of the
Harris Farm Engagement (also called the Battle of Harris Farm), during which General
Ewell's Confederate soldiers attacked Brig. Gen.
Tyler's Union artillery division near the farm. This engagement, the last major action of the
Battle of Spotsylvania Court House, ended when General Ewell's forces withdrew in the evening. During the fighting, the house was used as a field hospital. In the course of the battle, over 2000 soldiers were killed or wounded. In 1901, a monument dedicated to the memory of the fallen soldiers of the 1st Massachusetts Heavy Artillery was erected on the site.
References
External links
Fredericksburg, Stafford, Spotsylvania Historical Markers: Engagement At Harris Farm (Bloomsbury) EM-2
{{NRHP in Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Farms on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Houses in Spotsylvania County, Virginia
Houses completed in 1790
National Register of Historic Places in Spotsylvania County, Virginia
American Civil War on the National Register of Historic Places
Conflict sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia
Demolished buildings and structures in Virginia
Buildings and structures demolished in 2014