Temple Hall

Last updated
Temple Hall
Temple Hall Mansion.JPG
USA Virginia location map.svg
Red pog.svg
Location15764 Temple Hall Lane,
Leesburg, Virginia
Coordinates 39°10′54.39″N77°31′43.55″W / 39.1817750°N 77.5287639°W / 39.1817750; -77.5287639
Area286 acres (116 ha)
Built1810
Architectural style Federal style
NRHP reference No. 07000053 [1]
VLR No.053-0303
Significant dates
Added to NRHPFebruary 13, 2007
Designated VLRSeptember 6, 2006; May 15, 2007 [2]

Temple Hall is an early 19th-century Federal-style mansion and working farm near the Potomac River north of Leesburg in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Contents

History

Temple Hall was constructed in 1810 [3] for William Temple Thomson Mason (24 July 1782–1862), [4] a son of Thomson Mason and his second wife Elizabeth Westwood Wallace of nearby Raspberry Plain, and nephew of George Mason. [5] The estate became a hub of Leesburg society [6] and was visited by Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette during his grand tour of the United States on 9 August 1825. [5] [6] Lafayette was accompanied by President John Quincy Adams and former President James Monroe, who was then residing at his Oak Hill plantation in southern Loudoun County. [5] The three gentlemen witnessed the baptism of Mason's two youngest daughters at Temple Hall with Lafayette serving as godfather for Mary Carroll, and Adams and Monroe serving as Maria Louisa's godfathers. [5] [6] [7] Altogether, Mason and his wife, Ann Eliza Carroll, raised ten children at Temple Hall. [6] In addition to the Mason family, approximately twenty enslaved African-Americans resided on the property. [6] Under Mason's management, the Temple Hall estate was a modestly successful farm. [6] Mason cultivated orchards and raised corn, wheat, and livestock. [6]

Mason retired to Washington, D.C. in 1857 [6] and sold his farm to Henry A. Ball, who farmed it with using approximately 20 enslaved young men, 17 under age 16. [8] Ball favored secession, and after Virginia voted for secession as the American Civil War began, two of Henry Ball's enlisted in the Confederate States Army's cavalry. [1] In 1862, Henry Ball was arrested for refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Federal Government. [6] Ball was released after spending nearly a year in the Old Capitol Prison. [6] John S. Mosby visited Temple Hall on 5 July 1864 and dined with the Ball family. [6] While at the house, Mosby received information that led to the action at Mount Zion Church. [6] Temple Hall remained in the Ball family until 1878 when it was sold at auction. [6]

In 1940, after a succession of owners, the Temple Hall property was purchased by Mr. and Mrs. James H. Symington. [9] The Symingtons restored the mansion and made extensive renovations. [9] They modernized Temple Hall by adding indoor plumbing and electricity. [9] The Symingtons planted a variety of crops and eventually began specializing in popcorn. [9] They became the largest suppliers in the eastern United States until the popcorn market collapsed after World War II. [9] Afterwards, the Symingtons turned to raising livestock, including cattle and hogs, as well as wheat, corn, and hay for animal feed. [9] Mrs. Symington assumed management of the farm's operations after her husband became ill in the 1970s, and continued to operate it after his death. [9] Concerned about Loudoun County's rapid development and population growth, Mrs. Symington donated the 286 acre [10] farm to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NVRPA) in 1985. [9] Since then, the NVRPA has operated Temple Hall as a working farm and interpretive center. [9] [10] Temple Hall, along with several neighboring estates including nearby Mason family estate Raspberry Plain, is a contributing property in the 25,000-acre (10,000 ha) Catoctin Rural Historic District, which was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 31 January 1989. [5] Temple Hall was listed on the National Register on 13 February 2007.

Architecture

Temple Hall is an early 19th-century Federal-style mansion. [5] It is a Flemish bond brick house with a five-bay facade and is topped by a hipped roof. [5] A small Doric portico shelters the central entrance which is surmounted by a graceful semicircular fanlight. [5] Temple Hall also exhibits tall six-over-six double-sash windows, a frieze encircling the building, and tall interior end chimneys. [5] The property also features a square brick smokehouse and two 19th-century frame barns. [5]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamilton, Virginia</span> Town in Virginia

Hamilton is a town in the Loudoun Valley of Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. The population was 506 as of the 2010 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leesburg, Virginia</span> Town in Virginia, United States

Leesburg is a town in and the county seat of Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town. Located in the far northeast of the state, in the War of 1812 it was a refuge for important federal documents evacuated from Washington, DC, and in the Civil War, it changed hands several times.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oak Hill (James Monroe house)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Oak Hill is a mansion and plantation located in Aldie, Virginia that was for 22 years a home of Founding Father James Monroe, the fifth U.S. President. It is located approximately 9 miles (14 km) south of Leesburg on U.S. Route 15, in an unincorporated area of Loudoun County, Virginia. Its entrance is 10,300 feet (3,100 m) north of Gilberts Corner, the intersection of 15 with U.S. Route 50. It is a National Historic Landmark, but privately owned and not open to the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park</span>

The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park is a linear regional park in Northern Virginia. The park's primary feature is the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Trail, an asphalt-surfaced paved rail trail that runs through densely populated urban and suburban communities as well as through rural areas. Most of the trail travels on top of the rail bed of the former Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, which closed in 1968.

NOVA Parks is an inter-jurisdictional organization that owns and operates more than 10,000 acres of woodlands, streams, parks, trails, nature reserves, countryside and historic sites in Northern Virginia in the United States. The Authority was organized in 1959. NOVA Parks presently operates 34 regional parks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waterford, Virginia</span> Unincorporated community in Virginia, United States

Waterford is an unincorporated village and census-designated place (CDP) in the Catoctin Valley of Loudoun County, Virginia, located along Catoctin Creek. Waterford is 47 miles (76 km) northwest of Washington, D.C., and 7 miles (11 km) northwest of Leesburg. The entire village and surrounding countryside is a National Historic Landmark District, noted for its well-preserved 18th and 19th-century character.

Loudoun County, Virginia, was destined to be an area of significant military activity during the American Civil War. Located on Virginia's northern frontier, the Potomac River, Loudoun County became a borderland after Virginia's secession from the Union in early 1861. Loudoun County's numerous Potomac bridges, ferries and fords made it an ideal location for the Union and Confederate armies to cross into and out of Virginia. Likewise, the county's several gaps in the Blue Ridge Mountains that connected the Piedmont to the Shenandoah Valley and Winchester were of considerable strategic importance. The opposing armies would traverse the county several times throughout the war leading to several small battles, most notably the Battle of Ball's Bluff.

Thomson Mason was an American lawyer, planter and jurist. A younger brother of George Mason IV, United States patriot, statesman, and delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention, Thomson Mason would father Stevens Thomson Mason, and was the great-grandfather of Stevens T. Mason, first Governor of Michigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raspberry Plain</span> Human settlement in Virginia, United States of America

William Temple Thomson Mason was a prominent Virginia farmer and businessman.

Chopawamsic was an 18th-century plantation on Chopawamsic Creek in Stafford County, Virginia. Chopawamsic was a seat of the Mason family, which enslaved people there.

Thomson Francis Mason was an American lawyer, planter and politician who served as the mayor of Alexandria between 1827 and 1830, and as a justice of the peace for many years and briefly in the months before his death as a judge of the Washington D.C. criminal court.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Huntley (plantation)</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Huntley, also known as Historic Huntley or Huntley Hall is an early 19th-century Federal-style villa and farm in the Hybla Valley area of Fairfax County, Virginia. The house sits on a hill overlooking Huntley Meadows Park to the south. The estate is best known as the country residence of Thomson Francis Mason, grandson of George Mason of nearby Gunston Hall. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP), the Virginia Landmarks Register (VLR), and the Fairfax County Inventory of Historic Sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colross</span> Georgian mansion in Princeton, New Jersey

Colross is a Georgian style mansion built around 1800 as the center of a large plantation in what is now the Old Town neighborhood of Alexandria, Virginia, and moved circa 1930 to Princeton, New Jersey, where it is currently the administration building of Princeton Day School.

Okeley Manor was an early 19th-century plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States. Okeley, the residence of prominent Alexandria physician Richard Chichester Mason (1793–1869), was one of the principal Mason family estates in Northern Virginia. Mason's plantation house was used as a hospital during the American Civil War and burned to prevent the spread of smallpox.

Locust Hill is an early 19th-century Federal-style mansion north of Leesburg in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. Locust Hill was the home of John Thomson Mason, a prominent American jurist and Attorney General of Maryland in 1806 and nephew of Founding Father of the United States George Mason.

Chestnut Hill is an 18th-century Federal-style mansion north of Leesburg in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States. Chestnut Hill was a home of Thomson Francis Mason, a prominent jurist, lawyer, councilman, judge, mayor of Alexandria, and grandson of Founding Father of the United States George Mason. Chestnut Hill was also a home of Mason's son, Dr. John "Frank" Francis Mason. It is located at 13263 Chestnut Hill Lane near Leesburg.

Arthur "Pen" Pendleton Mason was an American military officer, merchant, planter and lawyer who served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate States Army serving during the American Civil War. Mason was a scion of the prominent Mason political family of Virginia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carlheim</span> Historic house in Virginia, United States

Carlheim is a mansion located in the northeast part of Leesburg, Virginia. It was constructed in about 1872 for Pennsylvania industrialist Charles R. Paxton (1816–1889) and his wife Rachel who continued to live there until her death in December 1921. When constructed, it sat on over 760 acres (3.1 km2) roughly bounded on the north end by the Red Rock Wilderness Overlook Regional Park, the Balls Bluff Battlefield and the Potomac River. In accordance with Mrs. Paxton's will, the buildings and 50 surrounding acres were preserved and organized into a charitable trust to benefit "needy children."

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. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  3. ↑ The Washington Post Company (April 26, 2007). "TEMPLE HALL FARM REGIONAL PARK". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on September 30, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  4. ↑ Gunston Hall. "William Temple Thomson Mason". Gunston Hall. Archived from the original on 2008-02-11. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Eugene M. Scheel & John S. Salmon (1988-12-13). "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Catoctin Rural Historic District" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-01-15. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (October 25, 2008). "Temple Hall". Historical Marker Database. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  7. ↑ "National Register of Historic Places Registration Form: Temple Hall" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. 2007. Retrieved 2018-04-21.
  8. ↑ NRIS Section 8 p. 14
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (October 25, 2008). "The Creation of Temple Hall Farm Regional Park". Historical Marker Database. Archived from the original on October 8, 2012. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
  10. 1 2 Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. "Temple Hall Farm Regional Park". Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. Archived from the original on 2008-02-16. Retrieved 2008-02-17.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.