Needham is a historic home located near Farmville, in Cumberland County, Virginia. It was constructed in 1802, and is a two-story, three-bay, single-pile,

central hall plan The central-passage house, also known variously as central hall plan house, center-hall house, hall-passage-parlor house, Williamsburg cottage, and Tidewater-type cottage, was a vernacular, or folk form, house type from the colonial period onward ...

frame dwelling. It has a two-story rear ell, with one-story addition built in 1929, although most of the former outbuildings have now disappeared. It was the home of educator, jurist, and politician

Creed Taylor Creed Bane Taylor V (May 13, 1929 – August 22, 2022) was an American record producer, best known for his work with CTI Records, which he founded in 1967. His career also included periods at Bethlehem Records, ABC-Paramount Records (including ...

(1766-1836). an
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/ref> as well as his son Creed Taylor Jr. (1791-1873). The elder Taylor established a proprietary law school in Richmond and moved it in the 1820s to this estate (it was Virginia's second law school and the nation's fourth), where it trained about 300 lawyers including U.S. President John Tyler's son, Ohio Supreme Court justice

William Y. Gholson William Yates Gholson (December 25, 1807 – September 21, 1870) was a Republican politician in the U.S. State of Ohio who was an Ohio Supreme Court judge from 1859 to 1863. Early life and education William Yates Gholson was born at hi ...

and future U.S. Congressmen John Minor Botts,

Joseph William Chinn Joseph William Chinn (November 16, 1798 – December 5, 1840) was a Virginia lawyer, plantation owner and politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly and in the United States House of Representatives. Early and f ...

and

John Hall Fulton John Hall Fulton (1792 – January 28, 1836) was a nineteenth-century politician and lawyer from Virginia. He was the brother of Andrew S. Fulton. Biography Born in Augusta County, Virginia, Fulton attended common schools as a child and we ...

as well as future Missouri governor and Confederate general Sterling Price.NRIS section 8 p. 3 Although the law school had closed by 1840 (and perhaps a decade earlier, following the establishment of the

University of Virginia Law School The University of Virginia School of Law (Virginia Law or UVA Law) is the law school of the University of Virginia, a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson as part of his "academical v ...

in 1829). In 1831 Anne Jane Gholson, the mother of novelist

Ellen Glasgow Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (April 22, 1873 – November 21, 1945) was an American novelist who won the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1942 for her novel ''In This Our Life''. She published 20 novels, as well as short stories, to critical ac ...

was born at Needham. Needham has been listed on 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 ...

since 1988. Virginia erected a historic marker concerning the proprietary law school in 2000.

References

Chancellor Creed Taylor and his wife, Sally deGraffenried (Woodson Taylor, had no children. The Creed Taylor who inherited the "Needham" property was his great nephew and namesake. This Creed, called "Young Creed", was born at Needham on 3 Aug 1807 and died there 16 Jan 1868, his wife was, Lucy Ann Matilda Woodson. He was also trained in the law The property passed to their youngest daughter, May Taylor wife of Albert Howard. "Young Creed" was the son of Samuel Taylor (nephew of the Chancellor) and Martha Woodson, youngest sister of Sally. Martha died at Needham 7 Feb 1810 of child-bed fever. Her three children were adopted by the Chancellor and his wife. Sources: Will of Chancellor Creed Taylor, original in my possession, Henry Morton Woodson, Woodsons and Their Connections (1915, Nashville, Tenn.), Writings of John Randolph, a great friend of Chancellor Taylor, Various deeds of the Needham property. Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Federal architecture in Virginia Houses completed in 1802 Houses in Cumberland County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Cumberland County, Virginia {{CumberlandCountyVA-NRHP-stub