Smithfield - Blacksburg, Virginia - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

Smithfield is a plantation house owned by Colonel William Preston. The L-shaped estate was built from 1772-1774. From this house and family came multiple Virginia Govenors and founders of several universities to include Virginia Tech, on which this plantation currently resides. Today, the home and surround land is owned by Preservation Virginia and tours are available from April to December.

From Wikipedia:
Smithfield is a plantation house outside Blacksburg, Virginia, built from 1772 to 1774 by Col. William Preston to be his residence and the headquarters of his farm. It was the birthplace of two Virginia Governors: James Patton Preston and John B. Floyd. The house remained a family home until 1959 when the home was donated to the APVA.

History:
The plantation site was part of 120,000 acres originally granted to James Patton by the British Crown. Patton was killed in the Draper's Meadow massacre in July 1755. The property was purchased by Patton's nephew, William Preston, who built the house from 1773 to 1774. Preston was an important colonial political figure, and may have been the author of the Fincastle Resolutions. He remained on the property, despite frequent threats from nearby Tories and Loyalists and Native Americans and the disruptions of the American Revolutionary War until his death from a stroke at a 1783 local militia muster.

The property then passed to his wife, Susanna Smith Preston, who lived there until her death forty years later.

James Patton Preston, Virginia Governor, inherited the farm from his mother. It was also the birthplace and home of his son, William Ballard Preston, who worked with Abraham Lincoln in the 1840s in Congress as part of a group of legislators known as "The Young Indians" and later authored Virginia's Articles of Secession in 1861. Descendants of William and Susanna Preston included four Virginia Governors – James Patton Preston, John Floyd, James McDowell, and John Buchanan Floyd – and numerous other legislators. In addition, descendants were instrumental in the founding and growth of several universities, including Virginia Military Institute, Virginia Tech and University of South Carolina.

The house itself is L-shaped, with high ceilings and large rooms. The detailing and proportions of the house are unusual for frontier homes. More unusually, the master bedroom is placed between the parlor and the dining room on the first floor, implying that Preston wanted to impress his guests with his ornate bedroom furniture.

Street address: 1000 Smithfield Plantation Road Blacksburg, Virginia United States of America 24060 County / Borough / Parish: Montgomery Year listed: 1969 Historic (Areas of) Significance: Person, Architecture/Engineering Periods of significance: 1750-1799 Historic function: Domestic Current function: Recreation And Culture Privately owned?: no Primary Web Site: [Web Link] Secondary Website 1: [Web Link] Secondary Website 2: [Web Link] Season start / Season finish: Not listed Hours of operation: Not listed National Historic Landmark Link: Not listed

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