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"Green Hill" Frame Barn HABS No. VA-610 Virginia Road Ho. 723 Long Island Vicinity HABS Casapbell County \[A Virginia v ^

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PHOTOGRAPHS WRITTEH HISTORICAL AMD DESCRIPTIVE DATA

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Historic American Buildings Survey National Park Service

Eastern Office, Division of Design and Construction U3 South Third Street

Philadelphia 6, Pennsylvania

HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY HABS No. VA-610 - HAfc'S

"GREEN HILL" 5R&ME BARN M

Address: Virginia Road No. 728, Long Island Vicinity, |M Campbell County, Virginia

Present Owner: L. H. Holland and brothers

PART I. HISTORICAL INFORM&TION

Hiysloal History: "Green Hill" plantation was built by Samuel Pannill who first bought 600 acres from William and Moses Fuqua in 1797, and added to and developed the plantation til his death in 1864.

PART II. ARCHITECTURAL INFORMATION

A. General Statement

1. Architectural character: This is a simple, small, un- painted frame barn in original state of construction with only minor changes.

2. Condition of fabric: Interior structure is sound; exterior weatherboards are untreated and in fair to poor condition. Original roof covering replaced.

B. Technical Description of Exterior

1. Overall dimensions: Approximately 14' x 14', 1-1/2 stories.

2. Foundations: Stone piers.

3. Wall construction: Stud walls covered with square- edged boards butted against each other.

4. Openings

a. Doorways and doors: One doorway located in east wall, center, first floor still contains original board and batten door and strap hinges with pintels One door opening in second floor, east gable end, without door, used for access into attic storage loft space. Gin Pole above second floor opening for hoist or pulley.

b.Windows and shutters: None

5. Roof

a. Shape, covering: Gable roof covered with modern sheet metal.

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"GREEN HILL" FRAME BABM V <j, HABS Ho. VA-610 (Page 2) . oN

b. Eaves; Boxed eaves extend "beyond walls about 10" and are covered with a beaded fascia and soffit board (now missing). Roof extends past gable ends about 10" with a verge board.

C. Technical Description of Interior

1. Floor plane. : First floor divided into two rooms; 2nd floor is loft space.

2. Hardware: Original strap hinges with pintels on exterior board and batten door.

3. Lighting: None.

4. Heating: None

D. Site

1. The frame barn is located about 170 feet southwest of the main house. It faces east towards a north-south driveway, and is about 30 feet north of a similar log barn. Opposite the driveway is an old boxwood garden enclosed by stone walls, and to the rear of the barn is a corn field.

2. Enclosures: Stone fences abut the building on each side of structure.

3. Drives: The cobblestone drive about 25 feet east of building leading toward main house entrance.

Prepared by Orville W. Carroll, Architect National Park Service October, 1960.

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WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA

REDUCED COPIES OF MEASURED DRAWINGS

HABS VA-610HABS VA,16-LONI.V,1M-

ADDENDUM TO:GREEN HILL, FRAME BARN(Green Hill, Corn House)Colonial Williamsburg Agricultural Buildings Project378 Pannills Road (State Route 728)Long Island vicinityCampbell CountyVirginia

HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEYNational Park Service

U.S. Department of the Interior1849 C Street NW

Washington, DC 20240-0001

ADDENDUM TO: GREEN HILL, FRAME BARN

(Green Hill, Corn House) HABS No. VA-610 (page 3)

HISTORIC AMERICAN BUILDINGS SURVEY

GREEN HILL, FRAME BARN (Green Hill, Corn House)

This is an addendum to a 2-page report previously transmitted to the Library of Congress.

Location: 378 Pannills Road (State Route 728), Southwest of the town of Long Island, near the junction of Epsons and Pannills Roads, Long Island vicinity, Campbell County, Virginia. The Frame Barn is located at latitude: 37.061503, longitude: -79.072974. The coordinate was obtained in 2019 using Google Earth (WGS84); there is no restriction to the public for its use.

Significance: While most of the Green Hill buildings have been abandoned, these Corn Houses continue to be used; the log structure as a mechanical work shed and the frame one for storage and processing of corn and storage of cattle feed. Both were erected ca. 1825-1850.

Description: Two gable-end corn houses survive on the northwest side of the axial drive. They are of similar size and form, and both appear to date to ca.1825-1850, although one has framed walls and the other V-notched hewn log walls. Both have open interstices in the walls, either between the logs or sheathing. Both also have partitions separating the first floor into a front room and a slightly larger rear room. The variation in proportion of these rooms is slightly greater in the frame crib. The smaller rooms are ceiled over for corn storage on the upper level, a function that was facilitated by doorways in the front gables. Recorded here is the frame Corn House used for storage and processing of corn and storage of cattle feed, with storage and production functions separated by the partition. Unshucked corn is stored, as it was originally, in the rear room. In recent years, an original 2’ 8”-high blocking of the interior doorway to this room has been cut out to allow easier access. Corn is now shucked in the front room and stored there until it is shelled in a twentieth-century mechanical sheller. Shelled corn as well as ground animal feed is stored in the room.

Sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century, movable partitions about 5’ 5” high were constructed at both ends of the front room. The resulting bins were apparently intended to store shelled corn or small grains,1 because the walls and floors within them were tightly sealed with additional sheathing and battens. Perhaps in the same period, a low second-floor partition was added at the rear of the front room. Remnants and ghosts indicate that it was constructed of

1Frank Holland tells that his family has used the bins for this function within the last twenty years. Interview, Green Hill, March 2, 1982.


HABS No. VA-610 (page 4)

studs with sheathing on the southeast wall.

The walls of this corn house are constructed in a traditional manner, with posts framing first- and second-floor doors, and intermediate posts located at the ends of the partition. Unusually heavy (3” x 1’-1”) false plates rest on the joists and are pegged into the front and rear joists and previously into a now-removed single joist (acting as a tie beam) centered in the rear room. The false plates project beyond the gable ends, carrying the roof out 10-½” to protect the partially exposed framing. Typically, beaded fascia boards are nailed to the ends of the joists but the lower sides are unenclosed. Otherwise, beaded finish is confined to corner boards and straight bargeboards. The original wrought nailed board-and-batten door survives, with a wrought iron latch and riveted strap hinges hung on pintles that face one another to prevent removal.

History: The Frame Barn or Corn House is one of a number of outbuildings erected by Samuel Pannill as part of his extensive Green Hill plantation, beginning after his initial land purchase in 1797. Pannill rose to become the richest man in post-Revolutionary Virginia, yet despite his wealth he built a relatively modest house, focusing instead on farm operations. As part of that effort, Pannill assemble one of the most extensive and costly plantation complexes known from the early Chesapeake, including many exceptional outbuildings. The Corn House was erected ca.1825-1850, based on material evidence such as the use of mature cut nails (wrought nails in door) and hewn and pit sawn framing. During a second phase of construction, the front room was partitioned and part of rear wall rebuilt, ca.1900, as suggested by the use of wire nails and circular-sawn boards.

Sources: Campbell County, Virginia, Land Records.

_____________________, Register of Wills.

Early, R. H. Campbell Chronicles and Family Sketches Embracing the History of Campbell County, Virginia 1782-1926 (Lynchburg, Virginia: J. P. Bell Company, 1927), 473-74.

Historian: Edward A. Chappell, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, using documentary research by Julie Richter, 1982.



Project Information: The documentation of Green Hill was undertaken by the Architectural Research

Department of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, in 1982. Beginning in 1980, the Architectural Research Department conducted intensive recording of early buildings in the Chesapeake region. A primary purpose of the work was to capture evidence through buildings, often endangered, for the lives of eighteenth and early nineteenth century residents, ranging from enslaved workers to wealthy property-owning Virginians and Marylanders. The department’s director Edward A. Chappell initiated and managed the project, while Willie Graham served as chief recorder. The particular character of the drawings reflects the architectural historians’ interest in how buildings evolved and were used over time. Although begun as the “Agricultural Buildings Survey,” the scope of the project expanded to become a more comprehensive examination of domestic and agricultural sites, often including the dwelling house and its associated outbuildings along with structures related directly with farming. The buildings were measured and drawn by Ed Chappell, Willie Graham, Mark Schara, Douglas Taylor, Donna Hole and Charles (see individual sheets). The historical report was written by Edward A. Chappell using documentary research by Julie Richter. Catherine C. Lavoie edited and transferred them into HABS format. The drawings were scanned onto HABS title block by HABS architect, Robert Arzola. This undertaking was part of a larger effort to incorporate the documentation produced by the Architectural Research Department at Colonial Williamsburg (now the Grainger Department of Architectural Preservation and Research) into the HABS collection, begun in 2017 under the direction of Jeff Klee, the Shirley and Richard Roberts Architectural Historian, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation and Catherine C. Lavoie, HABS Chief.



Figure 1: View of log and frame corn cribs; Willie Graham, photographer, June 18, 2008.

Figure 2: Perspective view of frame corn crib, Willie Graham, photographer, June 18, 2008.



Figure 3: Perspective view of frame corn crib; Edward Chappell; photographer, June 20, 2008.

Figure 4: Detail of the siding and eaves; Willie Graham, photographer, June 20, 2008.



Figure 5: Detail of door hinge; Edward Chappell, photographer, June 18, 2008.

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