Caroline Home and Garden: Old Mansion and Oakridge, The Real Sophia Hoomes

Old Mansion and Oakridge

A narrative of both estates and their place in the history and landscape of Caroline County Virginia.

About the author

Susan Sili has been a freelance for over 30 years, published in numerous periodicals on the subjects of historic preservation, history and architecture and studied the Oakridge Property as part of a Historic Preservation project at Mary Washington College in the early 1980s. As a child, her father and grandfather hunted the property known as Oakridge. She remembers as you entered the abandoned house from the basement level in the back, an old leather sidesaddle was propped in a corner. The children called it “Sophia's saddle”.

The impact of the properties known as Old Mansion and Oakridge on the political, economic and cultural life of Caroline County is significant and highly interesting considering its owners documented contributions, not only to the founding of the county seat of Bowling Green, but to their association with local folklore handed down for generations.

The narrative of the colorful Hoomes clan and their original land holdings, represents the classic American story of a family of adventurers who carved homesteads from the wilderness of a new world and earned a place in the history of Virginia and the nation. A grandson and great grand-daughter of the Hoomes family would lay the foundation for a small trading corner to become a village, then a town and eventually the center of business, trade and commerce for Caroline County.

Oakridge along with the better known “ Bolling Green” (Old Mansion)were for centuries a part of the original 17^th Century land patents of the Hoomes family and were working farms well into the 20^th century. The famous transportation artery known as the old Stage Road, the oldest north/south road in the colony of Virginia was just a stones throw from their doorstep.

In 1667, Major John Thomas Hoomes received a 3000 acre land grant from King Charles II on Virginia's frontier along the “Mattapony River Valley.” The tract was situated far from the established settlements along the James River and in fact those who crossed into this land were deemed foolhardy, considering the fierceness of the Native American inhabitants. The Major, along with only a handful of others, also military men, originally built and defended fort-like structures on their homesteads in what would one day become Caroline County.

While others came and went from the Mattapony River Valley, Hoomes was successful, On this tract, his son or grandson, George Hoomes III, who was also the County coroner and the sheriff, built, what is today, one of the most famous examples of an 18^th century residential house, in the Chesapeake Bay area. Constructed around 1740, just a few hundred yards from an old Indian trail which would become the “famous “Stage Road,” Hoomes called his estate “Bolling Green” after the family seat in England.

Heralded as a “blue chip architectural treasure” it is known today, as “Old Mansion” and is in a virtually unchanged state of preservation with its “Jerkin-head” roof and beautiful Flemish and English bond brickwork. A mile to the southeast, the property which would become “Oakridge” referred to by the local populace as the “sister house to Old Mansion” was a part of the original land tract and was used at that time for farming the cash crops of the day, Tobacco, Wheat, Barley and Corn.

The Hoomes family took an active role in the development and and building of Caroline County, but it would be George III's son, John Hoomes who would become the most important man of his time. He laid the plans which would result in the founding of the county seat, the Town of Bowling Green as we know it today.

In 1768, John Hoomes married Judith Churchill Allen. During this time he appears to be one of a number of heirs of the Hoomes' estate of his father, George. The estate was in the process of being dissipated by the new husband of a recently widowed Hoomes aunt. Portions of the Bolling Green were being sold off to pay for the man's gambling debt. By 1774 however with the help of local attorney Edmund Pendleton (first acting Governor of Virginia during the Revolution) the derelict husband had been evicted from the Bolling Green and John and his growing family were living there at the family estate. His only daughter, Sophia, the eventual builder and owner of the Oakridge property was born there in 1788. Determined to rebuild the family's prominence and fortune, John proved himself to be a man of many talents and it is nothing short of amazing what he accomplished in his life of 56 years.

One of his first initiatives was the building of New Hope Tavern a site less than a mile north from his residence at the intersection of the Stage Road and what was called the “rolling” Tobacco road to the river at Port Royal. The “Stage Road” provided the route south to Williamsburg and north to Philadelphia and other key cities in the northern colonies. The tavern was completed before the Revolution and became a meeting place and stop over for the founding fathers on their way to the famous gatherings which birthed the United States of America. Hoomes added a number of out buildings and stables. When the Caroline Courthouse burned near what is the present day site entrance gate of A.P. Hill, John bought the “rights” to the county court for seven hundred pounds and the court moved and met at New Hope Tavern, near the Bolling Green.

During the Revolution, John received a commission as a Colonel in the militia and was appointed a magistrate by Governor Patrick Henry in 1776. His troops drilled on the grounds of the Bolling Green and The Virginia Gazette of 1775 wrote that “1,500 spectators were exceedingly pleased with the dexterity and alertness of the men.” Washington, Rochambeau and Lafayette all stayed at the estate on the march to and from the Battle of Yorktown. John served as Caroline's Postmaster General, the County Treasurer as well Magistrate of the Courts.

A trading settlement grew up around the tavern known as New Hope Village and traveling merchants brought their wares for sale on the lawn of the tavern on“Court Days.” In colonial times a tavern was much more than just a place to pass the night while traveling, here people assembled to engage in political discussion, play cards, have dances, shooting matches and many other amusements of the day. Hoomes' closest friend, John George Woolfolk, had the responsibility of overseeing the transportation on the Stage Road and with expansion and improvement of the road system, the settlement began to grow.

In 1803, Hoomes donated the land, across the street from his tavern and $5,000 for the erection of a permanent Courthouse. Not built until after his death several decades later, the Courthouse and the Tavern across the street became the catalyst for the incorporation and growth of the the Town of Bowling Green. It was during this time that the village adopted the name of the founders estate, Bolling Green, later spelled Bowling Green and his home began to be referred to by the local citizenry as “ Old Mansion”.

John Hoomes served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1791-1795 and in the Virginia Senate from 1796-1803. In January of 1800, Thomas Jefferson with the newly established Republican Party decided to meet at the famous “convention” of that year, in Richmond, to form a strategy of how best to elect their candidates in the upcoming presidential election. John Hoomes was a part of the convention which espoused the right of the states to control their own destiny and agreed upon presidential electors. Those electors were kept informed by county committees and John Hoomes was appointed by Jefferson along with four of his fellow landowners to make up the first Caroline County Republican Committee.

He continued his duties as magistrate and sat for the court in part of the famous slave insurrection trial of 1800 which involved several Caroline slaves who had conspired in Gabriel's Rebellion to rise up and kill their masters. Hoomes, in partnership with four other magistrates wrote to Virginia Governor James Monroe asking for mercy for a young slave name Scipio, only 19 years of age, who had been found guilty in the Caroline Courts but as they stated had been “lead astray.” Due to their efforts, the Governor pardoned Scipio.

Sophia's father, John was a regular correspondent with Thomas Jefferson and George Washington

While not running his tavern or presiding over the court, Hoomes found time to become the most famous horse breeder in Virginia. Along with his neighbor, John Baylor of New Market and his partner, John Tayloe of Mt. Airy, he imported dozens of stallions and mares from England, the most famous of which was named “Diomed.” Diomed arrived at the Bolling Green at the age of 21 and lived another 10 years to sire the horses which would become the foundation stock of American thoroughbred horse racing. When he died at the ripe old age of 31, it was said “there was more mourning for Diomed that for the death of George Washington.” In 1801, Thomas Jefferson wrote the following about “Wildair,” a favorite horse he would eventually use for state occasions in the newly built Washington City; “Rec'd from Col. John Hoomes of the Bolling Green a bay horse, 7 yr. old, 16 hands high, for which I am to pay him 300 D May 1.”

The circular driveway at Old Mansion is the foundation of John Hoomes' original quarter mile race tract where the American and Virginia Jockey Club held its first races in the Commonwealth. “Four Mile” races were also held at the estate and for a time in the later half of the 18^th century, the area of the Bolling Green, thanks to Colonel Hoomes became one of the premier “Social Centers” of the Commonwealth of Virginia.

By the time of his death in 1805, the Colonel was a millionnaire many times over even by today standards with numerous landholdings and even owned 50,000 acres in an area which would become Bowling Green, Kentucky. He left his estate to his wife, Judith and upon her death to be divided among his living children, four sons and one daughter Sophia. Two of his sons, Armistead (of Aspen Hill), and George (of Wyoming on the Pamunkey in King William) would marry and live on estates outside of Bowling Green, while evidence suggests that Sophia and her brother, John, were still living at home at the time of their father's death. In his will, the Colonel names over one hundred slaves and their children and mandated that the families of his slaves be kept together and required that his heirs reimburse each other should the need arise to make this happen.

Tradition has always stated that the rear frame addition at Old Mansion was built for Sophia and her husband however the addition had already been built in 1791 when she married her first cousin, Major Wilson Allen from New Kent in 1807. It is possible they stayed there while the house at Oakridge was being constructed.

The Lady of Oakridge

The land that included Oakridge was willed to Sophia's mother, Judith as part of the 4000 acre Old Mansion tract. It may have been carved off for a house site with permission from her mother, but her father's will specifically left the balance of the property after the death of his wife to his son John. John appears to have passed away in 1824 without issue and according to the terms of his father's will, the remaining property was bound to be divided among the siblings. It is at this time that Sophia may have actually taken title to Oakridge, as well as much of the property which now encompasses the Town of Bowling Green. In any event, the house at Oakridge was built sometime in the first quarter of the 1800s and was situated one mile south from Old Mansion. Oakridge had all of the elaborate details that Sophia's father's house lacked, including ornate crown moldings, wainscoting, built in wall cabinets and an archway in the center hall.

The exterior details were also very fine and were an incredible example of a pivotal moment in early American architecture as the classical Federal style began to overtake the popular Georgian way of designing the homes of the wealthy in Virginia and throughout the south. Oakridge literally morphed the two styles together with its high gabled roof, gabled dormers, brick lintels and overall boxlike appearance while the entrance way sported a classical arched doorway split with a keystone and with a fan light below. The door frame featured pilasters on either side with a decorated architrave at the top. The windows were 9 over 9 over 9 panes of glass and ran nearly the length of the floor to the ceiling. For over a century the deeds to Oakridge reference the Spanish Oak in the description of the property lines so it is easy to assume where the estate received its name. Spanish Oak, a member of the Red Oak family are smaller and rounder than their oak cousins although the trunks can reach four feet in diameter. In the Spring, the leaves of this tree appear as a fuzzy red, then turning to light green throughout the summer with a final incredible display of scarlet maroon in the Fall. The trees, with the finely built house would have combined to make Oakridge, one of the true showplaces of Caroline County.

By all accounts Sophia Hoomes Allen lived here from the first quarter of the 1800s until her death in 1863, but until the review of documents for this report, some of the most interesting aspects of her life had been lost to time. She gave birth to 13 children, only four of which would survive infancy, childhood or young adulthood. During the war of 1812, her brother Armistead, would command his own squadron of Dragoons and would be promoted to Major and then Colonel. Another brother, Richard, would serve as Second Lt. in the same squadron. Armistead would later become a Virginia State Senator from 1816-1820.

However Sophia would survive all of her brothers, with the last, Armistead, dying in 1827. It is difficult to determine just how much of the original Bolling Green fell to Sophia upon the death of her brothers, but it is certain that she received considerable tracts as the few heirs of her brothers do not seem to be in play in the deed books. One of the problems of course is that Caroline is a “burned county” and many of the records from her father's death in 1805 and her brother's deaths in the 1820s have been lost.

In the 1840s, she appears in the deed records of Caroline County owning a major portion in similar fashion to her father of what is now downtown Bowling Green (2 to 3 miles north of Oakridge) and certainly a large portion of the eastern property behind the newly built Courthouse. At this point, she begins to sell lots to various businessmen whose names are still familiar today in the names of the town streets like Mr. Ennis. Ennis would soon open and operate the town livery stable and tannery. There is also some evidence, but further research is necessary, that she built and operated through agents, the famous “Star Hotel” on the east side of Main Street, finally selling it and its furnishings through a deed of trust to the managers. During this time, Oakridge is listed in the “farming tracts” of the new owner of Old Mansion, William Grimes Maury, so she apparently leased the fields to him.

Sophia, who became a widow in 1844, was the “wheeler dealer” of her day, with a son-in-law named Robert Tunstall, the husband of her beloved daughter Adeline, handling many of her affairs, including deeds of trust and records of money lent to individuals. In conclusion, it was Sophia not her father John who saw through the the actual building of the Caroline Courthouse at the intersection of the old stage and rolling road in 1835 and who began to sell the land on either side for business development.

“Court Days” continued sponsored by the Tavern which took the form of open vendor spots on the lawn for traveling sales people and local farmers selling crops. The Tavern rooms, including the basement were actually rented by local merchants and entrepreneurs. One deed references the Tavern lot and talks about numerous other structures and the “stone house” on the grounds which were being used as stores. The stage line with its ticket sales operated out of the basement. Businesses sprang up around the intersection and beyond on the Stage Road which turned into what we know as Main Street today. In 1850, John B. Westendorf, father of the famous composer Thomas Westerndof (I'll Take you Home Again Kathleen),was owner of the Tavern and set aside an easement in perpetuity that contained the “lawn” of the Tavern for public use. By the late 1800s, the tavern was being referred to to as “The Lawn Hotel” so famous was its front yard in regard to commerce and business.

In 1847, the “Lady Of Oakridge” made a detailed will in which she left property to a granddaughter, the child of her deceased daughter Adeline, and divided her numerous slaves into five lots. She made her son John the executor of her estate and added her wish that her man-servant Abraham be allowed to pick his master from among her heirs. She made provisions that all of her property be divided and sold, provided that the cemetery was retained by the family. Records show that her son, John actually purchased from the estate, the Oakridge property the year of her death in 1863.

Will of Sophia Hoomes Allen

In the aftermath of reconstruction following the Civil War, when so many families lost their holdings, it also appears that he used the property for collateral for a deed of trust and in 1871 was adjudged bankrupt, losing Oakridge to a land speculator named Bruan from Henrico. This is the last time the caveat regarding ingress and egress to the cemetery appears in the deed. There are very likely a number of graves on the property as Sophia bore thirteen children, only 4 of which survived her. The speculator sold the property in 1882 to another speculator named McClintie from Bath County who sold it (351 acres), the same year to Walter Hudgins who in turn sold it to the Chandlers. The Chandlers sold Oakridge to J.L. and Sallie Jordan in 1899. In 1925, widow Sallie sold it to C.W. Edwards who owned it in the early 1980s when the house burned. The site then passed from the Edwards estate as a 257 acre tract including the house site to Maxie Broaddus to the Webbs who own it today.

Folklore

Many legends surround both Old Mansion and Oakridge. Tenants who have rented the addition to Old Mansion have been interviewed at length about their unusual experiences in the home. In 1995, this author interviewed then owner Ed Russell and took three pictures of him in the hallway of Old Mansion, inadvertently capturing an image standing behind Mr. Russell with fairly determinable features including an extended arm and hand in at least one of the photographs. Oral histories handed down and written up in the 1930s talk about ghostly apparitions all related to the equestrian history of the property. A ghostly rider makes an appearance on the track before the death of each of John Hoomes' young sons. The most retold story however, is that of Sophia. The story goes that once she moved from Old Mansion to Oakridge, she never again visited her parents home by day, but only, according to her coachman, at night. Over the years many people have recorded their surprise at hearing the distinct sound of the multiple hoof boots of a coach and four during the night.

Conclusion

The original land tract of which Oakridge was a part, beginning in the mid 1600s, has undergone tremendous change to make way for life in a modern society. From Colonial times to the Revolution, to the Civil War, and Reconstruction, the Depression and beyond, its inhabitants mastered the landscape with impressive dwellings. improvements and working farms which lasted well into the 20^th century. Of the original “Bolling Green” very little remains untouched, that is except for the “Oakridge.”

While the area around the patriarchs “Old Mansion” has been, dug, surveyed and “metal detected,” Oakridge, by virtue of its geography and placement off the main road lies to the south in a peaceful landscape. Although it has been timbered, the ground beneath “Bowling Green's Forgotten Estate” lies very much in the same condition as when John Hoomes, his daughter Sophia, the Maurys and others farmed it until well into the 1950s. The house itself was so important, pictures of the dwelling were used by The University of Mary Washington's professors as teaching tools for classes in Historic Preservation and Architecture.

Oakridge and its owners contributed significantly to the social, economic and cultural development of both Bowling Green and Caroline County. The Oakridge site represents an opportunity to study a facet of early American life not often preserved or available to the public. With the sites proximity to the Old Stage Road, it quite possibly contains within its boundaries, one of the last treasure troves to be found within Caroline County in the nature of archeology for years to come. The site would yield information about Virginians living on pre-Civil War era farms in a rural county, but with the means and ability to have access to goods and services within the Town.

The estate's unique attributes are not only vested in its relatively undeveloped state, but combine with the nature of all of its attributes, geographical location to town and placement off the Stage Road, social status and income level of its owner/builder added to the fact that it was a complete working 18th century farm. This could very well lead to not only notables archeological contributions but educational opportunities to learn about life on an eighteenth century farm which was "town centered" and not hundreds of miles from its nearest neighbor.

This report represents a short, but intense look at the records of the property including wills, deeds and other documents, but it should be noted that the “story” of Oakridge is far from complete and should really be considered cursory. A closer look at the Woolfolk Papers, now at the College of William and Mary, the papers of Colonel John Hoomes himself, available at the Virginia Genealogy Society, the Baylor family papers from New Market and numerous correspondence made by Colonel Hoomes to such notable as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe will bring a better rounded picture to the community, the family, and their holdings.