Ker Place

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Ker Place
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Entrance to Ker Place, April 2013
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LocationNE corner of Crockett Ave. and Market St., Onancock, Virginia
Coordinates 37°42′46″N75°44′50″W / 37.71278°N 75.74722°W / 37.71278; -75.74722
Area2 acres (0.81 ha)
Built1799 (1799)
Architectural styleFederal
NRHP reference No. 70000780 [1]
VLR No.273-0003
Significant dates
Added to NRHPFebruary 26, 1970
Designated VLRDecember 02, 1969 [2]

Ker Place, sometimes spelled Kerr Place, is a historic home located at Onancock, Accomack County, Virginia. It was built in 1799, and is a two-story, five-bay rectangular Federal-style dwelling with a central projecting pedimented pavilion on both the front and rear elevations. It has a cross-gable roof and a two-story wing which originally was a 1+12-story kitchen connected to the house by a hyphen. In 1960, the house and two acres of land were acquired by, and made the headquarters of the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society, which operates it as an early 19th-century historic house museum. [3]

Contents

The first owner was John Shepherd Ker, a native of Accomack County, Virginia, son of Edward Ker, a native of Cessford, Scotland and Margaret Shepherd, from Northampton County, Virginia. [4] It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. [1] It is located in the Onancock Historic District.

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Edward Ker Snead, a Virginia lawyer and slaveholder in Accoumack County on Virginia's Eastern Shore, became a judge in Norfolk and Portsmouth, Virginia during the Union occupation late in the American Civil War, and later was elected one of Accomack County's two delegates to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1868, and even later became a federal tax collector on the Eastern Shore.

References

  1. 1 2 "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places . National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved May 12, 2013.
  3. Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission (October 1969). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Kerr Place" (PDF). Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying photo
  4. Federal Writers' Project (1938). The Ocean Highway: New Brunswick, New Jersey to Jacksonville, Florida. Works Progress Administration. p. 71.