Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory - Virginia


Virginia

Walnut Valley Plantation

Cabin, Walnut Valley Plantation, Surry Co, VA (37.14034, -76.723387)


Felling Dates: Spring 1815 and Winter 1815/16


Corner posts 1815 (20C), 1814(51¼C); Down braces (2/4) 1813(11), 1803(20); Door post 1812(15+3C NM); Chimney post (0/1); Door hinges (0/2). Site Master 1654-1815 WVY (oak) (t = 7.8 GLOx1; 5.5 VA2008x; 5.4 EYREHALL; 5.3 HQFx10).


This cabin, dating to 1816, is a frame, one-story, with an unheated garret, and supported by six brick piers. The walls are clad in beaded wooden weather boards. The first floor consists of a single room, with an exterior chimney. The north door is original, whilst the south doorway (slightly larger and off line with the north door) is a later alteration. A ladder stair currently is positioned in the north-west corner of the room, but evidence in the form of a surviving header indicates that the stair originally was placed in the opposite corner, overlapping slightly with the fireplace. Probably at the same time that the stairway was repositioned, the partition in the garret was shifted from the east to the west end of the structure. The door in the current partition is hung on a pair of large wooden hinges that are attached to the door using machine cut and headed nails.


Miles, D W H and Worthington, M J, 2009 ‘The Tree-Ring Dating of Eight Virginia Slave Buildings’, unpublished ODL archive report 2009/05.


Oxford

Tree-Ring

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Contact Information

Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory

Proprietors
Michael Worthington
Jane Seiter, Ph.D

25 E. Montgomery St.
Baltimore, MD 21230

410-929-1520

michael@dendrochronology.com