Places To Visit

The early Northampton County cottage called Pear Valley is a textbook of vernacular design and displays the refinement that the colonial housewright could give to small dwellings. Lending the house both dignity and stability is the brick end with its... Read More

In 2013, Pear Valley was designated as a National Historic Landmark and became one of only 2,596 landmarks in the entire U.S., 121 Virginia, and two in Northampton County. This places Pear Valley in the company of Virginia's Monticello, Montpelier, a... Read More

George Pearis in 1779 resided and was in command of the Pearis Fort on the New River, providing refuge for settlers from hostile Indian attacks. Captain Pearis joined Major Joseph Cloyd in suppressing Tory uprisings in 1780 at Shallow Ford along the ... Read More

Pearisburg, the county seat of Giles County, was laid out in 1806 on land donated by Col. George Pearis, an early settler. The plan established a large public square for county buildings, situated at the northeast corner of Main Street and Wenonah Av... Read More

A symbol of Danville's 19th-century affluence, the Penn-Wyatt House is the city's most exuberant example of Victorian residential architecture. The original owner, James Gabriel Penn, came to Danville in 1868 and established himself as a tobacco comm... Read More

The short-lived People's Bank of Eggleston in Giles County was constructed by about 1925 and closed in 1932, a victim of the Great Depression. A modest two-story brick building resembling an American Foursquare house, the People's Bank served as a ce... Read More

This plain dwelling near the town of Dayton in Rockingham County is one of the few Continental-type farmhouses surviving from the heavy German settlement in the Shenandoah Valley. The central-chimney house is also one of the latest and most southern ... Read More

Petersburg National Battlefield Park, located approximately 25 miles south of Richmond, encompasses a large area with battlefield sites and visitor centers. In June 1864, Ulysses S. Grant realized that the key to conquering Richmond was to bring d... Read More

Nearby to the east once stood the community of Peytonsburg a part of Halifax County when the county was formed in 1752. Peytonsburg was incorporated as a town in 1759 by the Virginia General Assembly and became part of Pittsylvania County in 1766. Du... Read More

Built in 1814 at the foot of dePriest Mountain in Nelson County, Virginia, by William Massie, Pharsalia commands stunning views and is surrounded by original outbuildings and lovely gardens. Pharsalia is rich in history with a picturesque setting lik... Read More

Philip Craft House is a simple hall-parlor-plan dwelling built in the early-19th-century with unusual use of rounded bricks that cap the top of the water table and course the top of the chimney haunches. Of German ancestry, Philip Craft married into ... Read More

Piedmont Mill Historic District in Franklin County features the water-powered Martin-Piedmont-Clements mill, built around 1866 by Albert G. Martin on Maggodee Creek, and two dwellings from about the same period. Water-powered grist mills constituted ... Read More

Pine Slash, c1750, standing near Totopotomoy Creek in Hanover County, is one of only two surviving original homes of Patrick Henry. The original 300-acre tract, once part of Rural Plains, was given to Patrick Henry and his first wife Sarah when th... Read More

Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation is located off the Virginia Route 5 Scenic Byway in Williamsburg's James River Plantation country. The property is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and now offers guided house tours, self-guided... Read More

This antebellum courthouse stands as a landmark to the African American struggle for civil rights in the post Civil-War era. Judge J. D. Coles's attempt in 1878 to exclude blacks from jury duty here led to the Supreme Court case of Ex parte Virginia.... Read More