This is part of a series examining Port Royal "block by block" based on a map owned by Jim Patton from 1930. See here for the background.
The block is one block away from St. Peter’s. It is bordered by Market, Water and Frederick. It encompasses lots 3,10,9,2.
The Lightfoots dominated this block from 1846-1909. One owner has owned Lots 2 and 9 since 1905.
Lots 3 and 10 were first consolidated in 1810-20 with the Hipkins and later the Bernards. The ownership was the same until the 1980’s when at some point they were split off and sold to the Stehls and now owned by Robert Bryan.
Lot 2
John Brown, silversmith, was the first to live here, from 1757 until his death in 1777. His brother advertised the property for sale, October 30, 1778, which included a six-room house with kitchen, laundry, meat-house, stable, smith’s shop, garden “paled in,” and a new warehouse below the river-bank.1
the lot is dominated by Riverview. Riverview was built in 1846 as the residence of John Rernard Lightfoot (1814-1888) and his wife Harriet (“Hal”) Lightfoot (1822-1871) and their eight children; members of the family lived here until 1909. This included owners Philip Lightfoot (1843); John B. Lightfoot (1845); Harriet Lightfoot, William B. Lightfoot, John B. Lightfoot, Jr., Harriet A. Brooke, Lewis H. Lightfoot, Sally V. Lightfoot, William Henry Kennon, Herbert C. Lightfoot, and Philip H. Lightfoot (1889); Lewis H. Lightfoot (1890); John B. Lightfoot, Jr. (1896); Sallie L. Tompkins (1896);
It is a two-story frame house with nine rooms fronts on a series of long steep terraces leading down to the edge of the Rappahannock River, where formerly a grain warehouse stood for loading grain on riverboats.
Fall writes “One hundred yards out into the river are remains of a wharf built in the 19th century where the Lightfoot family moored its boat, the “P.D.Q.” Nearly all river-front residences maintained such a wharf a century ago, and the pilings of five such wharves can still be seen at low tide.
Miss Jacquelin Turner who lived there in 1966 possessed a letter of her mother of the Booth Crossing
“Booth crossed the Rappahannock River by “horse boat,” and because the current was running very strong the boat landed down stream instead of at it usual docking wharf, at the river bank in front of the home of Mr. John Bernard Lightfoot. Two of Lightfoot’s daughters, Miss Harriet and Miss Sally Lightfoot, were at home, and seeing the boat approaching, went to meet the passengers on the river bank. Miss Harriet and Miss Sally were reigning belles and beauties, and they cordially invited the handsome strangers to come to the house and meet their father so that he could offer them aid, for it was obvious that one of them was in pain. However, the horsemen explained that they must press on.”
In 1886-1891 Captain Sally Tompkins of Mathews County lived with the Lightfoot family. A former director of Robertson Hospital in Richmond during the Civil War, she died in 1916 and was buried in Kingston Parish Churchyard, Mathews County.
Lot 3
Main property here was Riverside Cottage from 1822-1910
Owners of Lot 3: Lawrence Smith; Joseph Wyatt to John Brown (1757); Stephen Hansford (1803); Elizabeth P. Hipkins (1816).
Hipkins began the consolidation also owning Lot 10 (1814)
William Bernard of Belle Grove, King George County, erected a dwelling Riverside Cottage on Lot 3 in about 1822; his widow Sarah (Dykes) Bernard and daughters Sarah Ann Bernard and Eliza Frances Bernard lived here (1830-1840); the heirs, John Hipkins Bernard, William Bernard, Philip Lightfoot, Helen (Struhan) Robb and her husband Philip Lightfoot Robb owned Riverside Cottage until 1890 when the house was gone.
Lot 9
This lot was separately owned from the other lots until John Hilldrup in 1810: Thomas Roane and wife Mary Ann Roane (1787); Catherine Roane (1807); Latney G. Henry (1809); John Hildrup (1810);