About

Built in 1821, the birthplace represents a rare surviving example of a small, plain vernacular house that was once very common throughout Tidewater Virginia. This modest dwelling contains three rooms and is of a type often used by white professionals, craftsmen, and small land-owning farmers in the first half of the 19th century. The house stood behind a store and tavern at a crossroads community at the intersection of Hickory Fork Road (sometimes known as York River Road) and the road to Gloucester Courthouse. When a late 19th-century post office opened here, the crossroads was dubbed ‘Belroi', a shortened version of the name given to the nearby 1852 home of William Roy and Isabella Taliaferro Jones, "Belle Roi."