"Oakland," also known as the James M. Stephenson House, is a home located in

Parkersburg Parkersburg is a city in and the county seat of Wood County, West Virginia. Located at the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha rivers, it is the state's fourth-largest city and the largest city in the Parkersburg-Marietta-Vienna metro ...

Wood County, West Virginia Wood County is a county in the U.S. state of West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 84,296, making it West Virginia's fifth-most populous county. Its county seat is Parkersburg. The county was formed in 1798 from the western ...

. Although a slaveholder and sympathizing with the Confederacy, Stephenson was also married to the sister of Unionist

Arthur Boreman Arthur Ingram Boreman (July 24, 1823April 19, 1896) was an American lawyer, politician and judge who helped found the U.S. state of West Virginia. Raised in Tyler County, West Virginia, he served as the state's first Governor, and a United Sta ...

, and allowed then Union Army Col. (later Gen.)

James B. Steedman James Blair Steedman (July 29, 1817 – October 18, 1883) was an American printer, contractor and lawyer who rose to the rank of general in the Union Army during the Civil War. A printer by trade, as well as a soldier during the Texas War of ...

to use his grove nearby during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. However, Union cavalry units occupied this his mansion for a time nonetheless, and damaged furnishings as well as the home and garden.Henry Edmund Matheny, Wood County, West Virginia in Civil War Times, with an account of Guerilla Warfare in the Little Kanawha Valley (Trans-Allegheny Books, Parkersburg 1987) p. 101 It was built in 1840, and is a two-story, "L"-shaped, red brick house in the

Greek Revival The Greek Revival was an architectural movement which began in the middle of the 18th century but which particularly flourished in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, predominantly in northern Europe and the United States and Canada, but ...

style. It features a low hipped roof with

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, from ...

and a single bay, one-story

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cult ...

with paired, fluted wooden

Doric order The Doric order was one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of col ...

columns. It was 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 ...

in 1979. It was donated to the WVU Parkersburg Foundation in 2015.

References

External links

* Houses in Parkersburg, West Virginia Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in West Virginia Historic American Buildings Survey in West Virginia Greek Revival houses in West Virginia Houses completed in 1840 National Register of Historic Places in Wood County, West Virginia {{WoodCountyWV-NRHP-stub