Ellwood Manor - Unlike the grander Chatham Manor Ellwood was no symbol of wealth. Instead it was atypical, prosperous, antebellum agricultural operation of middling size- designed for function, not show. Perched on a knoll overlooking Wilderness Run, Ellwood stood athe center of te extensive 5,000 acre estate. There were a number of outbuildings and about a dozen slaves worked the fields. William Jones build Ellwood about 1790 and he or his descendants would own the place for the next century. Light Horse Harry Lee, Robert E. Lees father wrote his memoirs in one of the upstairs bedrooms. In 1825, Revolutionary war hero Marquis de Lafayette dined at Ellwood during his triumphant tour of America. It is believed that James Madison and James Monroe both visited Ellwood. Five years after William Jones first wife, Elizabeth Betty Churchill died, he at 78 years married Elizabeths grandniece 16 year old Lucinda Gordon. They had a child which William promptly named Betty Churchill Jones, after his first wife. When William died in 1845, Lucinda inherited Ellwood only if she did not remarry. She chose heart over home and married her love and gave up Ellwood to her daughter. Betty Churchill Jones married James Horace Lacy in 1848. They owned Ellwood until 1907. Remarkably William Jones born in 1750 had a great grandson still living in 1998. For months after the Battle of Chancellorsville the house served as a field hospital. In the fall of 1863, Union troops on their way to the standoff at Mine Run, seven miles west, stopped at Ellwood and ransacked the fine Lacy Library. In May, 1864 during the Battle of the Wilderness, Ellwood grounds teemed with Union Artillery and soldiers. General Grant made his Hdqtrs a few hundred yards from Ellwood. Two Union generals, Gouverneur K. warren and Ambrose E. Burnside moved into Ellwood itself. By the battles end, Ellwoods floors were stained with blood, its gardens trampled, its fences gone. Graves dotted the grounds. The houses caretakers had been arrested and sent to the Old capital Prison in Washington, D. C. For the next eight years Ellwood stood vacant xcept for squatters. In 1872 Lacy resumed life at Ellwood after selling Chatham to help pay off debts incurred during the war. The National Park Service acquired the house and grounds in 1977. Ellwoods most famous internment is Stonewall Jackson left arm. On May 2, 1863, Jackson was wounded by the mistaken fire of his own troops at Chancellorsville. Surgeons removed the injured limb at nearby Wilderness Tavern. The following day, Jacksons chaplain, Beverley Tucker Lacy, carried the amputated arm across the fields and buried it in his brothers graveyard. it remains here to this day , the only marked grave in the cemetery.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 01:46:54 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015