Located in King and Queen County, approximately forty-five miles northeast of Richmond, Newtown [†] is a small, mid-19th-century crossroads settlement containing approximately ten dwellings and an equal number of outbuildings. The linear town marks the intersection of State Route 721 (running east/west) and State Route 625 (running north/south). The district boundaries were drawn to include all structures within the town. As land use within Newtown is primarily agricultural, land density is very low. Topographically, the area is flat but rises slightly to the southwest. Buildings are located on large lots and tend to cluster near the street, fronting or siding large fields of planted crops. Because these farmlands and open spaces are vital to the rural character of Newtown, they have been included within the district boundaries.
Most dwellings line the north side of Route 721, west of Route 625. Accenting the center of town are a frame grocery store (1922), located on the northwest corner of routes 721 and 625, and a cinder block, one-story fire station (circa 1970) located on the northeast corner.
All residences are detached, single-family farmhouses of frame construction and range from 1-1/2 to 2 stories in height. Each possesses a gable roof and, with minor exceptions, dates from the 19th century. A unique feature to many houses along Route 721 is their placement on raised brick basements. A small family cemetery dating from the second quarter of the 19th century is located just east of building 18 (east of the southeast corner of routes 721 and 625). Grave markers range from simple, undecorated stones to a late 19th-century obelisk. The cemetery, located in the center of a planted field , is set off by a low chain-link fence. As a whole, Newtown retains much of its late 19th- and early 20th-century character. With the exception of the firehouse and several outbuildings, structures within the district date prior to 1925. Most dwellings reveal only minor exterior alterations.
Newtown originated in the late colonial period as a crossroads settlement on the Great Post Road that ran from Williamsburg to Philadelphia. Its nucleus was a pre-Revolutionary store and ordinary kept by Captain John Richards, an early settler of upper King and Queen County whose neighboring plantation, Newtown, gave the village its name. During the first half of the 19th century, Newtown prospered as the largest post village in antebellum King and Queen County, supporting a long succession of private academies and schools. The scene of several important movements by both Northern and Southern troops in the Civil War, the village witnessed, in early June 1863, the last tactical action of Confederate General George Pickett's division before it began its long march to Gettysburg. Today Newtown survives in a predominantly rural setting as an example of a Tidewater cross- roads retaining its 19th-century flavor. The town consists of ten dwellings and a nearly equal number of outbuildings. The architecture of Newtown's early years is represented by the following historic structures: The Hill, built in the late 18th century; the Lee Boulware House, built circa 1823; the Richardson Lumpkin House, built circa 1839; the Samuel S. Gresham House, built circa 1845; and Walton's Academy, built circa 1854.
On the eve of English colonization, Newtown was an Indian trai junction situated two miles north of the Mattaponi River in the center of the land mass which dominates the northwestern section of King and Queen County. The Chiskiack Trail, following the ridges from the York River, crossed there, while other trails led northeast and northwest. Colonial roads generally followed the Indian paths,and the Great Post Road, or King's Highway, passed through Newtown when the colonial post was established. By the late colonial period, the junction had become known to travelers as the Great Cross Roads.-'
An advertisement in the Virginia Gazette of August 10, 1769, shows how Newtown received its name: "FOR SALE Newtown, a Plantation in the upper end of King and Queen upon the Great Cross Roads, formerly a store and ordinary kept by Captain John Richards. It consists of very good houses and 163 acres of land and seems well situated for an ordinary..." The purchaser of the plantation may have been James Gardner; ten years later the tavern was identified in a soldier's diary as "Gardner's Tavern at Newtown.
Several prominent Tidewater estates stood near the settlement in this early period: Beverly Park, the home of Robert Beverly, a colonial leader and Virginia's first native- born historian; Spring Farm, the home of Captain James Pendleton of the Continental Army and Governor of Virginia; and Dewsville, the birthplace of Thomas R. Dew, noted author and thirteenth president of the College of William and Mary.
longer standing), commanded one of the Virginia brigades in the Yorktown campaign and later became Attorney General of Virginia. The first company of regular Continental troops from King and Queen County, and one of the first in the state, was organized by a "Captain Segar of Newton." James Pendleton, before serving briefly as Governor of Virginia, fought in the Revolution as a major of artillery. Thomas Dew, the father of Thomas R. Dew and builder of Dewsville, enlisted in the Revolution as a drummer boy and later served as a captain of militia in the War of 1812.
Although the Confederation period saw the exodus from Newtown of many who had fought in the Revolution, the settlement continued to grow slowly through the early national period. Identified only as a post town in Jedidiah Morse's Universal Gazetteer in 1821, by 1836, the crossroads of 1769 had become the largest village in King and Oueen County and served as an important social and commercial center for this agrarian area. Newtown provided institutions and economic services for neighboring farmers through its stores, churches, schools, taverns, and places of business. According to Joseph Martin's New and Comprehensive Gazetteer of Virginia, the village in 1836 contained twenty dwelling houses, a reformed Baptist church, one male seminary averaging thirty pupils, two mercantile stores, a tailor, boot and shoemaker, and a blacksmith.
From the late colonial period until the Civil War, Newtown lent its support to several large schools in the vicinity. The most famous of these was Donald Robertson's school (1758-1773), which was attended by many famous Virginians, including President James Madison, Senator John Taylor of Caroline, and General George Rogers Clark. In 1810 a school was conducted at Spring Farm that continued to operate into the 1860s. C. W. Taliaferro opened a school in Newtown in 1820, which was succeeded in 1826 by the Newtown Academy, under the direction of J. B. Tilden and W. P. Rawles. In 1842 Lee Roy Boulware established a school for girls in his home, Tudor Hall. Several years later, E. Payson Walton, a Congregational minister, opened the Newtown Female Institute in a building he purchased from A. M. Boulware. The structure still stands in good condition in the center of Newtown.
Newtown men fought for the Confederacy from the outbreak of the Civil War to the surrender at Appomattox; however, Newtown itself saw no Federal troops until May 5, 1863, with the brief appearance of a detachment of Kilpatrick's Raiders. The first mention of Newtown in the official records of the war is by General George Pickett on June 3, 1863: >em>"I received a message from General Lee to send eight wagons and a guard to Newton for some corn. I know of no such place." Pickett called his commander's attention to the crossroads, Newtown, and was immediately ordered there to meet an expected attack by Federal columns from both Aylett and Tappahannock. From their deployment at Newtown on June 5, Pickett's Division began the long march that carried it to a tragic end at Gettysburg. Grant's forces moved through Newtown in the Richmond campaign of 1864 and later were followed by Sheridan's Cavalry Corps.
The most significant buildings in the Newtown Historic District date from the late 18th century to the Civil War. The oldest remaining dwelling is The Hill, also known as Locust Hill. The house originally stood at the intersection of the north-south King's Highway (before the road was moved east to its present location as Route 721) with the east-west road to the Rappahannock and Mattaponi. This situation and the evident age of crumbling blocks and architectural details from old brick rooms that collapsed at the beginning of this century make it credible that the structure was the store and ordinary kept by John Richards and advertised for sale in 1769. In 1847 William H. Segar sold the house to Benjamin Franklin Dew, a successful lawyer, farmer, teacher, and land speculator in the county. Dew purchased the house as a home for his wife and family of six children, and it remained in the hands of his heirs until his death in 1903. In 1904 Mrs. Ida R. Pitts bought the house, which then consisted of a dormer-windowed building of part brick and frame construction, connected by a porch to a two-story addition. After the walls and chimney of the brick section of the house collapsed, the remaining brick portion was pulled down, and a smaller weatherboard re- placement was built; simultaneously, the dormered roof was raised and the central front door moved to the south. The porch connecting the front and rear buildings recently was enclosed and converted to a one-story room. The Hill now belongs to the heirs of Mrs. Ella Minor, who bought the house from the Pitts family.
The farm and house that were formerly the property of Lee Boulware (1777-1839) originally consisted of 650 acres. The west part of the two-story house was built in 1823 by Boulware, a prominent county planter and lawyer. The east side of the house is believed to have been built circa 1855 by Lee Boulware's heirs. Dr. Thomas J. Bates (1821- 1895), a Boulware descendant, acquired the property after the Civil War, and it has remained in the hands of the Bates family for three generations. In a field to the east of the house is a private cemetery for the Boulware, Kidd, Taliaferro, and Bates families.
The Richardson Lumpkin House, also known as the Old Town House stands on what was a corner of the Newtown crossroads when Lumpkin built it circa 1839. A citizen of Essex County who married Priscilla Pendleton of Newtown in 1828, Lumpkin built the dwelling next to a store which he had just purchased as rental property from Samuel S. Gresham and John N. Ryland. A man of considerable property and business ability, Lumpkin died in 1868, and his recently discovered private papers are an important source of information on Newtown in the two decades before the Civil War. For many years the house was un- occupied and belonged to Lumpkin descendants. During the mid-20th century it served as the residence of Dr. Robley Bates, a prominent local physician.
Samuel S. Gresham was manager of a general store and postmaster of Newtown when he built his house in 1845. Seven years later he enlarged the house by adding the section on the east and raising the roof from Ih to two full stories. Upon his retirement as postmaster in 1858, he sold the dwelling to Margaret B. Harris in 1860 only to buy it back from her in 1868. Gresham was bankrupt by 1875, and the house passed into the hands of C. H. Martin, whose heirs sold it to J. L. Rouzie in the early 1900s. Rouzie increased the length of the structure by adding a one-story wing to the west side of the house. John O. Turpin purchased the property in 1941. A successful farmer and businessman, Turpin served as chair- man of the King and Queen Board of Supervisors from 1956 until his death in 1972. The house is known locally as the Turpin House.
Walton's Academy is an important reminder of Newtown's former prominence as a center of learning for both men and women in King and Queen County. Opened as early as 1852 by Rev. E. Payson Walton, A.M., a Congregational minister from Philadelphia, the Newtown Female Seminary acquired this house as its quarters in 1854. The two-story frame house with its high brick foundation was built for Walton in 1853-54 by Andrew Moore Boulware, the leading merchant of Newtown. it served as Walton's home as well as his school. An advertisement which appeared in the Richmond Whig and Public Advertiser in 1855 listed among the Seminary's many advantages the claim that, "the well-known healthfulness and salabrity of the climate of Newtown, its remoteness from city influences ... and its refined and intelligent society, render it one of the most desirable locations for a literary institution in Virginia. Walton prudently closed the school at the outbreak of the Civil War, and the house served for the next several years as the residence of Dr. Thomas Jefferson Bates, who devoted much of his time to the care of the Confederate sick and wounded. Near the end of the war, Bates married Rosalie Lumpkin and later acquired the Lee Boulware House across the road as their home. During the remainder of the 19th century, the Academy was rented to various tenants, including Dr. Whiting, who took over Dr. Bates's practice and whose wife had earlier boarded in the house as a pupil of Mr. Walton. In 1902 Mrs. Nora Bates Madison bought the Academy for her daughter, Mrs. Ryland Turpin, and it remains in the possession of Mrs. Turpin's heirs.
† Adapted from: Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Staff, Newtown Historic District, nomination document, 1983, National Register of Historic Places, Washington, D.C.
Street Names
Route 625 • Route 721
Other Neighborhoods Named Newtown Historic District