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Taylor house was constructed near the end of the
1700's, possibly by Richard Taylor. His son George inherited the house and
the plantation in 1790. Following George's death around 1816, it
changed hands between various owners and farmers until it returned to the Taylor family in 1848. William Byrd Taylor owned the plantation and dwelling, which stood
with a least two other on a hill south of the town of Blandford at the time of the Civil War.
The Taylor plantation lay in the path of the attacking Union army, and
was overrun by Federal troops on June 18, as shown in the following excerpt from the official report of General Wilcox, division commander in the Ninth
Corps. The buildings remained behind Union lines for the duration of the siege:
...the division had a severe engagement, lasting nearly all day, moving up to, across, and beyond the deep cut of the Norfolk railroad, in front of the Taylor house, driving the enemy into his new works, not withstanding our very heavy loss, and finally establishing ourselves nearer to the enemy than any other portion of the army. (O.R. Series I, Vol. 40, Part 1:571)
The Taylor dwellings were destroyed by fire shortly afterward, and
ruins were called the "Chimneys" in Union reports and on Union maps
after that.
William Taylor returned to the property after the war and built a modest frame
house on the brick foundations of his former kitchen. He lived there on the property until his death in 1875.
In the early 1900s, a dairy farm worked the same land.
When the National Park System purchased the former Taylor farm, they removed the
frame house, thereby exposing the brick foundations of the former kitchen and probable slave quarters.
Excavations on the Taylor site in the summer of 1978. failed to locate
the earlier plantation manor building, but a ground-penetrating radar and proton magnetometer survey of the Taylor site
detected a large rectangular anomaly approximately 60 feet north of the standing foundation.
Further excavations were done, and artifacts recovered at that time indicated that the property had been occupied
from the mid 1700s. Further excavations within the brick-lined cellar revealed an ash layer
as well as melted bottle and window glass, which would confirm the
structure had been destroyed by fire. |
