Parishioner homes have been in the news of late. Witness Rock Stop Farm
Another home Belle Grove just across the river from St Peter’s was featured in the business section of the Free Lance-Star, July 21. Here is the link to the story or you can follow it below.
Carolinus Turner was a pew holder in 1850 in pew 29 on a list drawn up by Jim Patton and provided $75 to the church. A family tree can be viewed here.
Carolinus and Susan Turner would live at Belle Grove and would have five children, Caroline “Carrie” M. Turner, Anna August Turner, George Turner, their only son, Susan Rose Turner, and Alice Pratt Turner. Carolinus live from 1813 until he died at age 64 of tuberculosis in 1876.
The obituary appeared in Alexandria Gazette on December 19, 1876 that was reprinted from the Fredericksburg Herald:
"…Mr. Turner was a large landholder, and previous to the war, owned a great many servants. He was a gentleman of excellent education, and commanded the respect and esteem of a large circle of friends.”
A description of the properties of homes along the Rappahannock, many associated with St. Peter’s was found in DeBow’s "Review No. 26" in 1859
"On the south side of the Rappahannock, Mr. William Pratt’s farm and beautiful residence, Camden, lies, next below Mr. Lightfoot’s ; then Port Tobago, belonging to Mrs. White, and adjoining Liberty-hill, belonging to John T. Boutwell, Esq. On the opposite or King George side, lies the fine farm and improvements of Mrs. Tayloe and Carolinus Turner; the former called Oakenbrow, the latter Nausatico. This last is one of several fine estates belonging to Mr. Turner, on the river. Walsingham, the farm and residence of George Turner, Esq., opposite Port Royal, is where the first American Turner of this family settled, lie made a tasteful and judicious se¬lection for his cis-Atlantic home. Next below Nausatico is the farm and dwelling of our old friend (not an old man), schoolmate, and connection, Fielding Lewis. He is the great-grand-nephew of Washington, and, in person, more like him than any man living, unless it be his father, Dangerfield Lewis, Esq., of Marmion, King George Co., Virginia. At Marmion, there is a fine portrait of Mr. Lewis’s grandmother, a sister of Washington. It is noble looking, and greatly resembles the portraits of the General."
Here is an 1884 picture of the property close to the time of Carolinus. Carolinus added the distinctive wings:
Free Lance-Star article, July 21, 2013
"From the moment people enter Belle Grove’s tree-shaded drive, Michelle Darnell wants them to feel enveloped by Southern hospitality and a sense of history.
She and her husband hope to open the stately plantation house overlooking the Rappahannock River in the Port Conway area of King George County on Aug. 1 as Belle Grove Plantation Bed and Breakfast.
Built in 1791 on the site of James Madison’s birthplace, the house and its extensive grounds—694 acres in all—will also play host to weddings, receptions, conferences, retreats and other special activities such as two afternoon teas with Dolley Madison re-enactor Lynn Uzzell on Aug. 24.
“Eventually we may hold public events,” said Michelle Darnell. “I’d love to see an orchestra do music under the stars on the lawn.”
The Darnells, who are from Chesapeake, discovered Belle Grove while looking for a place to turn into a bed-and-breakfast after their children went off to college.
“I’m from South Carolina and had a grandmother who taught me three things: history, entertaining and cooking,” said Michelle Darnell, who used to work as a sous-chef at a Virginia Beach bistro. “It was inevitable that I would run a B&B.”
Awed by Belle Grove’s potential, the couple leased it from Franz Haas Machinery in 2011. The Austrian company had purchased the house in 1988, and later spent $3.5 million to strip it down to the studs and restore its former glory—along with some modern touches.
To prepare the property for its new role, Michelle Darnell has spent the last two years researching its history, which is replete with family sagas and a brush with Civil War history. They include the mysterious 1869 etching in an upstairs window by Caroline “Carrie” Turner that hints at a romance, and an overnight stay by Union officers in pursuit of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.
Belle Grove Plantation’s history begins with a more than 5,000-acre land grant given to Thomas Chetwood and John Prossor by Virginia Governor William Berkeley in 1668.
Nearly 75 years later, Belle Grove became the childhood home of Eleanor Rose Conway Madison. “Nelly” as she was known, returned there after her marriage to give birth to her first son and the future fourth president of the United States. That house either burned or was later torn down.
A relative, Captain Francis Conway III, set aside 13 acres of the plantation’s land in 1783 to lay out what would become Port Conway. Wealthy merchant and ship owner John Hipkins of Port Royal purchased Belle Grove in 1790 for his only child, Frances “Fanny” Hipkins Bernard and her husband, William Bernard.
He built the center section of the current home over what is believed to have been the Conway house’s basement. A later owner, Carolinus Turner—Carrie’s father—added Belle Grove’s distinctive wings, curved porches and porticos.
The plantation has had a number of other owners over the years, and was used at various points as an experimental farm and a summer home for a wealthy real estate broker from Chicago and his wife.
The Darnells are keeping Belle Grove’s history alive by naming the two downstairs junior suites and one of the two upstairs master suites after the Conway, Hipkins–Bernard and Turner families. The other master suite is named for James Madison.
The master suites will go for $265 Monday through Thursday and $295 on weekends, and the junior suites will run $220 Monday through Thursday and $245 on weekends. A military discount will be available.
Each suite will have a short history of the family that it’s named for, and antique and reproduction furniture
typical of what they might have owned. These include a 1730 full tester bed outfitted with a TempurPedic mattress and 600-thread-count sheets in the Madison suite, and an 1885 cheval mirror in the Turner suite that’s perfect for brides to get a full-length view of themselves in their wedding gown.
“I’m trying to pull pieces of what was here,” Michelle Darnell said. “They won’t all be that old, but there will be anchor pieces so you can get an idea of what would have been here.”
Overnight guests will have their breakfast—blueberry and lemon pancakes, perhaps—served in one of the mansion’s two dining rooms. And they’ll have the use of the two “withdrawing” rooms, one of which has a library that the Darnells are filling through a “virtual housewarming party.” That’s actually a request for books posted on Michelle Darnell’s blog, virginiaplantation.wordpress.com.
She also posted a recipe contest on her blog to pick the official Belle Grove cookie that will be served as a nighttime snack in each suite for a year. The runner-up will be served at lemonade socials.
The Darnells held their first open house for Belle Grove on July 4 as part of Port Royal’s Fourth of July celebrations. They were hoping for at least 10 people to show up for each of the four, hour-long tours they planned to give. They got nearly 100.
“I know that I love this place, but for other people to have that passion to be here floors me,” Michelle Darnell said. “People have longed to come here due to family connections or love of history. It gave me great joy to have them here. It made July Fourth kind of cool.”