About

Ben Lomond and its outbuildings were constructed for Benjamin Chinn in 1832. Confederate forces used Ben Lomond as a hospital following the 1861 Battle of First Manassas. Signatures of Federal soldiers who occupied the property in 1862 are still visible inside the house. Tour the house, where you can smell, touch, hear and taste history. Then see the restored slave quarter, smokehouse and dairy and enjoy the fragrant Rose Garden.

Originally part of a Northern Virginia land grant, Ben Lomond was one of numerous plantations that Robert Carter III owned in Colonial Virginia. After Carter died, his land-holdings were divided. His grandson, Benjamin Chinn, inherited Ben Lomond in 1830 and within two years had built the two story main house along with the dairy, smokehouse, and slave quarter. Chinn leased the property to the Pringle family prior to the Civil War. Both the Chinns and Pringles used enslaved workforce to farm.

Immediately after the Battle of 1st Manassas the house was converted into a Confederate field hospital. For nearly a month wounded soldiers were crammed into the house with many more covering the grounds. After the Confederates evacuated the area in 1862, Federal soldiers ransacked the house, destroying furniture and littering the interior with graffiti.