Home > Virginia > Keswick > Meriwether House, Smokehouse/Dairy, Keswick, Albemarle County, VA
Data Pages
Drawings
Item Title
LocationSmokehouse/Dairy,
Keswick, VA
Find maps of Keswick, VA
Created/Published
Documentation compiled after 1933.
Notes
Survey number HABS VA-1358-A
Unprocessed field note material exists for this structure (N953).
Building/structure dates:
1830 initial construction
This documentation was completed for a class at the University of Virginia & subsequently donated to the HABS collection.
Significance: The (ca. 1830-50) structure is maintained and utilized by the Barnes family as a workshop and storage area. It originally accommodated a smokehouse in one-half of the space and a well-ventilated dairy in the other. The site was settled by Nicholas Meriwether in the early eighteenth century. By 1747, Meriwether had a one-story dwelling built on the property. After Francis Kinloch Nelson married Margaret Douglas Meriwether of Cloverfields in 1845, a new house was erected on the grounds. This two-story farmhouse, constructed in 1847-48, was designed in a manner after the Greek Revival-style. Nelson, in addition to the dwelling he replaced, found "all the buildings for farming purposes wanting." If the building was standing at that time, then it is likely that the smokehouse/dairy dependency was one of those structures he though lacking. In 1849, Nelson spent $2500 improving Cloverfields; the smokehouse/dairy could have been constructed or upgraded at that time.
Subjects
OutbuildingsAgricultureDairying
Related Names
Oehl, Sarah, Historian
Collection
Historic American Buildings Survey (Library of Congress)
Contents
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