8th Virginia Houses

The homes of several 8th Virginia veterans survive in Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and Indiana. Some were the houses they grew up in and others were built in their final years of life.  Some survive only in photographs. If you know of others, please let us know so we an include them here.

The home of Surgeon Cornelius Baldwin on South Loudoun Street in Winchester, built in the 1790s. Baldwin was from New Jersey and joined the regiment in 1777, continuing in service to the end of the war. Among his civilian patients was Thomas Fairfax, Sixth Lord Fairfax of Cameron, who lived near Winchester until his death in 1781. There is a tradition that Lord Fairfax died in Dr. Baldwin's home after going their for treatment. That house would have been a precursor to this one. This house was used as a tavern and significantly altered, but restored in 1777. Much of its internal woodwork is still original.

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Berry Plain, built about 1720, was the childhood home of Capt. Thomas Berry. The house was built by his father or grandfather and survives in King George County, Virginia. It overlooks the Rappahanock River, though the land has been subdivided and a new house now sits between it and the river. Much of the interior is original and the current owners are taking great care of it. Berry was the younger brother of Benjamin Berry, the founder of Berryville and the proprietor of the famous Battletown tavern where Daniel Morgan, William Darke, and John Stephenson engaged in frequent fistfights or wrestling matches in the years before the Revolution. Thomas and Benjamin both bought land on the Shenandoah River in what is now Clarke County.

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A photo of the home of Benjamin Biggs near West Liberty, W.V. before it was torn down about 1960. Biggs was a private soldier in Capt. John Stephenson's independent frontier company in 1775, a company that was then attached to the 8th Virginia. He was later an officer in the 13th Virginia (redesigned the 9th and then the 7th later in the war) and a brigadier general in the Virginia militia in the 1790s. He was a prominent figure in the early history of Ohio County, W.V.

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The Shenandoah County home of Lt. Col. Abraham Bowman, built by his father in the early 1770s. The house was long believed to date to the 1750s but dendrochronology has disproven that. It was preceded by a log house which was used as a fort ("Fort Bowman") in the 1750s and 1760s. Bowman was promoted to colonel in 1777 and moved to Kentucky in 1779 after being released in a consolidation of the Virginia line.

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Colonel Abraham Bowman led several families to Kentucky in 1779 and settled at first with his brother John at Bowman's Station at present Burgin, Mercer County. He was an early settler near Lexington, where he built this unique log house. It has a basement and second floor with an exterior staircase. It was expertly restored at the turn of the century.

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Cedar Hall near Lexington, Ky. may have been the last home of Col. Abraham Bowman. It was built no earlier than 1834 across the road from his log house.  Colonel Bowman died in 1837. It is more plausible that the house was built by his son, George H. Bowman, but the evidence is mixed. It is a true plantation house and shows how the Bowman prospered in Kentucky, owning both slaves and quite a bit of land. The house was renamed Helm Place by later owners.

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Major William Croghan leveraged his position as a Virginia veteran bounty land agent into substantial wealth. His restored plantation house near Louisville, Locust Grove, is a frequent destination for school field trips. The connected museum is a key site for 8th Virginia history.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Clark moved to Louisville to join his extended family in the 1790s. Though later additions mask its original appearance, his home survives in Louisville.

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Now the rear part of later residence, this one-story house on Main Street in Woodstock is believed to have been built by 8th Va. veteran George Clower and to have been his residence until he died in 1822.

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Major William Darke's home in present Jefferson County, West Virginia does not survive, What became of it is not remembered, but he may have lived in what was later used as a slave quarters. That building, and a family graveyard, do survive.

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Major Peter Helphenstine returned to Winchester in August 1776 infected with malaria. As his condition deteriorated, he oversaw the construction of a house for his wife and children. He died in 1778 or 1779. This house, which belonged to his descendants, is often said to have been his. William Greenway Russell, writing in 1876, said it was not. It was torn down in the 1950s. (WFCHS)

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Captain Robert Higgins grew up in what is now Hardy County, West Virginia. The town of Moorefield was chartered during the war and he returned there after the war. He built this log house there and resided in it until he moved to Ohio. The house is in good condition. There are plans to turn it into a museum.

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Sgt. James Lamb of David Stephenson's Augusta County company moved to Indiana after the war, reportedly because of his objections to slavery. His home, made of fieldstone survives near the town of Richmond. Two additions have been added, but the original structure is intact.

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A local history book reports that this photograph depicts veteran Christopher Moyers' log house in White Pine, Jefferson County, Tennessee. Please reach out if you know more about this house.

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Originally the home of his father, Gen. Peter Muhlenberg inherited this house in Trappe, Pennsylvania and lived his final years in it. He served as vice president of Pennsylvania, a member of the U.S. House and the member of the U.S. Senate during his time here. He is buried at his father's church down the street.

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Corporal Philip Fine lived in this house in St. Louis, Missouri in 1804, twenty years before the Louisiana Purchase. It was built in 1774 by a French colonist. Other notable people, including Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (at different times) lived in it. The house was torn down shortly after this daguerrotype image was made in 1850. The place where it stood is just a few hundred feet from the south leg of the Gateway Arch on the grounds of Gateway Arch National Park. (Missouri Historical Society)

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The home of Lt. Jacob Rinker still stands in western Shenandoah County. The house, build in a German style, straddles spring and was built by the officer's father when the family settled here. Rinker rose to prominence in the Shenandoah Valley as a militia leader and much-trusted surveyor.

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The home Col. John Stephenson in Harrison County, Kentucky. A date on the attic timbers says either 1793 or 1798. The house had fallen into disrepair by the time Charles Wilson Case bought the farm it sits on in  the 1920s. It was used for many years as a barn. Case's granddaughter Cathy Case Muntz inherited this part of the farm, but gave the house to her sister Reba Case Fuller so she could restore it, which she and her husband Donny did in 1996 and 1997. Much of the interior is still original, despite the house's history.

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The altered home of Chaplain Christian Streit still stands in Winchester. Streit was a childhood friend of Peter Muhlenberg and also trained for the ministry with him. After the war, Streit settled in Winchester and served as pastor of the town's Lutheran congregation. The structure's 19th century appearance is the result of an expansion of the attic/half story. Though hard to discern in the photograph, the original roof line can be seen in the stonework of the side wall.