We have made it past the first round of the Virginia Landmarks Registry evaluations and are now working towards the second round. As such, we have been asked to do a little bit more research which involves me getting off my ass and actually going places like the library *gasp* instead of getting to do research online.
I was tasked with the job of doing said research (naturally, I mean what else do I have to do all day but eat bonbons and watch soap operas all day) so I took the girls to the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation, Inc. (HFFI) who then directed me to the local library. It was there that I discovered the property used to fall under the name of “Lee Hill Farm” which was owned by P. L. Shannon. While owned by P. L. Shannon (who, if you’ve been keeping up was Sydney Shannon, Jr.’s grandfather) the farm was a cattle farm which sold Angus. I have yet to discover any more information about Lee Hill Farm other than it sold a very expensive Angus in 1956 which brought in $11,900 (May 12, 1956, The Free Lance-Star) which I’m guessing, for that time, was a lot of money.
After our visit to the library’s Virginiana room, I was directed to the City of Fredericksburg courthouse for further research but, it had already been a few hours and I had the girls with me so we were kind of a ticking time-bomb at that point and I planned to go later. As it turns out, I was able to delegate that order of business to Marcus who discovered that all records prior to 1955 are in Spotsylvania County’s courthouse because it was during that year the land was annexed. So, wish me luck! Tomorrow I hope to find out more information of the house and possibly who the architect was.
