Name:  Mountain Grove

Date:  undated photo

Image Number:  UVA Library, Mountain Grove_83437

Comments:  Mountain Grove in Schuyler was built in 1803-1804 for Captain Benjamin Harris, a soldier in the Virginia State Militia during the Revolution and a magistrate in 1791.  Mountain Grove was built in the classic Virginia Palladian style.  Its tripartite form is composed of a two-story, three bay center block flanked by single-bay, 1 1/2-story wings.  Strongly Jeffersonian in design, Mountain Grove is not unlike the earliest designs for Monticello.

Benjamin Harris was a man of great wealth and prominence in Albemarle County.  He was a Captain in the Virginia State Militia during the Revolution, a magistrate in 1791, and sheriff in 1815.  Harris name appeared on "A Declaration of Independence" signed by citizens of Albemarle County in 1779.  Many members of his family distinguished themselves politically, and several apparently built substantial houses near Green Creek and in nearby Nelson County.  Mountain Grove was built on land Harris inherited from his father and with money borrowed from his neighbor, Wilson Cary Nicholas.  When Benjamin passed away in 1826, the Mountain Grove house was passed by will to Benjamin's son, George W. Harris.

The back of the Mountain Grove dwelling.

A front view of the rennovated Mountain Grove dwelling, ca. 1980.

In 2000, Elizabeth Buet purchased the Mountain Grove property from its previous owner, MaryBess McCray Johnson.  Elizabeth Buet sold Mountain Grove to the Mountain Grove Historic Properties LLC in January 2016, and this LLC still owns this house and its accompanying 77.62 acres in 2018

Mountain Grove is located at 7375 Secretary's Sand Road in Schuyler, Virginia.  The Harris Family Cemetery sits at the intersection of Old Sand Road and Irish Road (SR6).

Scottsville Museum wishes to thank Maxwell Johnson for his research and photographs on this Esmont community home!

References:
1)  Hallock, Jennifer; Gardiner Hallock & Kristie Baynard.  National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Southern Albemarle Rural Historic District. February 2007; Section 7, p. 135.
2)  Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Staff (May 1977).  "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination:  Esmont" (PDF).
3)  Mountain Grove.  University of Virginia Library, 1803; https://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/uva-lib:83437.
4)  Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 002-0095 Mountain Grove; https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/002-0095/
5)  National Register of Historic Places Inventory - Nomination Form, 9/8/1980, Mountain Grove; U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service.
6)  Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 002-0095 Mountain Grove, 1980 Final Nomination Form;  https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/002-0095/ .
7)  http://gisweb.albemarle.org/gisweb/AdvancedSearch.aspx, Mountain Grove; Parcel ID: 11900-00-00-05600.

Copyright © 2018 by Scottsville Museum

Top Image Located On:  Library of Congress, LC_DIG_csas_04157

Middle Image Located On:  University of Virginia Library, Mountain Grove_83437 ; see http://search.lib.virginia.edu/catalog/uva-lib:83437 .

Bottom Image Located On:  Photo: 002-0095 Mountain Grove.  Virginia Department of Historic Resources, 05/20/1980.  See:  https://www.dhr.virginia.gov/historic-registers/002-0095/ .