Recent Updates
City Landmarks
The list below includes all of the properties and sites that are designated as Charles Town Historic Landmarks. Many of these properties are included in the Charles Town Historic Walking Tour which can be found online here or picked up at the Jefferson County Convention and Visitors Bureau located at 108 North George Street in downtown Charles Town.
Please note that most of the below Landmarks are private property and are not open to the public.
- Jefferson County Courthouse
100 East Washington Street
The original courthouse was built in 1803 and rebuilt in 1837 when county business outgrew the original building. Although court records had been removed to safety at the start of the Civil War, the courthouse was destroyed in 1863 by a Confederate artillery barrage. Consequently the county court met in Shepherdstown from 1865-1871. The courthouse also witnessed the trial of William Blizzard in 1922. Blizzard, the alleged leader of striking coal miners, was charged with treason and murder for engaging in warfare with the state and federal troops in Mingo and Logan Counties. The trials of Blizzard and John Brown are two of the only three treason trials held in the United States prior to World War II.
-
Tiffin House
210 West Liberty Street
Completed in 1787 for the Tiffin family, this is the oldest house built within the original boundaries of Charles Town. Dr. Edward Tiffin, born in 1766 in Carlisle, England, came to Charles Town in 1784 with his parents and helped in the building of the house. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied medicine. He returned to Charles Town to open his practice.
In 1798 he left for Ohio with other pioneer settlers, including his brother-in-law, Thomas Worthington. Tiffin used a letter of introduction from George Washington to become acquainted with Territorial Governor Arthur St. Clair. There he became active in local politics. When Ohio was admitted to the Union in 1803, he was elected its first governor. He served two terms. Thomas Worthington was elected the first state senator from Ohio, having lobbied Washington to allow Ohio statehood. Worthington also served as Ohio Governor, beginning in 1816.
The Tiffin House has undergone many changes. Its log construction faced with brick. The building was enlarged with the addition of a wing at the rear. It has many interior amenities of the period, including fine Georgian mantels and a spiral staircase with a mahogany rail.
-
Happy Retreat
Blakeley Place and Mordington Avenue
Charles Washington (1738-1799) was only a 14-year-old when his brother Lawrence died and left this land in his will to Charles. In 1780, Charles brought his family from Fredericksburg, Virginia and built a house that he called Happy Retreat. Construction of the house began with the building of two wings connected by a breezeway. Charles wanted to build a larger middle section, but may not have had the financial resources to do so. After his death, his son sold the house.
In 1873, the house was bought by Judge Isaac Douglass, who built the center, three-story portion of the house and renamed the house Mordington after his ancestral home in Scotland. In 1945, a new owner, R.J. Funkhouser, restored the name Happy Retreat.
Friends of Happy Retreat is a local organization currently working to purchase this property and develop it for public use.
-
Old Opera House
Northwest corner of George and Liberty Streets
Commissioned by a Washington family descendent, Mrs. Ann Gibson Packette, the Opera House was built in 1910. The first show was presented on February 11, 1911, a comedy with “home talent.” The proceeds of the show went to the Daughters of the Confederacy for the benefit of indigent Confederate veterans. The theater has an orchestra pit, a curved balcony, and seats 330 people. One of only a dozen of its kind left in the United States, the Old Opera House offers community theater productions. 304-725- 4420
-
Flagg House
323 East Washington Street
The Flagg House, named for the postmaster who lived here in 1989, was built in 1798 for Samuel Washington, son of Charles. John Young, a carpenter who settled in Charles Town in 1796, built this house and others in the Charles Town area.
-
John Locke House
Northwest corner of Lawrence and Avis Streets
An African-American Masonic and Odd Fellows Lodge for over a century, this is one of Charles Town’s oldest stone buildings. It was built about 1795 by John Locke on land purchased from Charles Washington. Note the S-shaped iron escutcheons that are connected through the building bracing the walls. A plaque outside the building honors Charles Town resident Major Martin R. Delany, first African American officer in the U.S. Army.
-
Gibson-Todd House
515 South Samuel Street
This property, now the site of a brick Victorian built in 1892 by Col. John Thomas Gibson, encompasses the site of John Brown’s execution. On December 2, 1859, the wagon carrying Brown and the procession that followed moved down George Street to the gallows in a field on the Rebecca Hunter Farm. (The gallows stood at a spot just north of this house.) Nearly 800 troops under the command of Col. Gibson were posted to keep order. Among them was a detachment from the Corps of Cadets from the Virginia Military Institute, commanded by William Gilham, a faculty member. Major Thomas Jackson, who during the Civil War earned the nickname “Stonewall,” commanded the cadet artillery.
-
W.L. Wilson House
Southeast corner of Mildred and Avis Streets
This Victorian Gothic house, designed and built by J.C. Holmes, was completed in 1876. It was the home of William L. Wilson (1833-1900). While serving as president of West Virginia University from 1882-83, Wilson accepted a nomination for U.S. Congress from the second district of West Virginia. He won election by ten votes. Appointed U.S. Postmaster General in 1894, he introduced rural-free delivery of mail in Jefferson County, first in the country.
-
Miley House
Northeast corner of Washington and Church Streets.
Formerly used as stage coach stop.
-
Zion Episcopal Church and Graveyard
Congress Street, between Mildred and Church Streets
There have been three Episcopal churches on this site. The first two were built in 1818 and 1846. The second church burned two years after it was completed. The present church was completed in 1851. During the Civil War Federal troops quartered here desecrated the church almost beyond recognition by dismantling it and destroying the pews. The cemetery may hold the largest number of Washington family descendants in the United States – more than 70 – including some twenty who were born at Mount Vernon. Some graves were moved here from St. George’s Chapel graveyard.
Other notables buried here include Edmund Randolph (Edmund was a great-great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson and great-grandson of Edmund Randolph, the first Secretary of State of the United States) and his wife, Julia Paca Kennedy; Colonel R. Preston Chew, chief of the Stuart Horse Artillery of the Confederate Army, and his wife Louisa Fontaine Washington; and Dr. Paca Kennedy, a professor of Greek at Virginia Theological Seminary.
The stone-and-brick wall that surrounds the property is believed to have been built under the supervision of John Yates Beall, an engineer who studied at the University of Virginia. Beall enlisted in the Confederate Army and was wounded while part of Colonel Turner Ashby’s cavalry. He then joined the Confederate Navy and helped in raiding the shipping of war materials on the Chesapeake Bay, where he was captured and exchanged. In 1864, he went to Canada to aid in the effort to further disrupt the shipping of war materials destined for Federal troops. He was captured, tried by a military commission, and convicted as a spy. In spite of pleas made directly to President Lincoln and Gen. John A. Dix, commander of the military court, that his life be spared, Beall was hanged on February 18, 1865. He is buried in Zion cemetery.
-
Tatte-Fairfax-Muse House
201 East Washington Street
An excellent example of late Georgian architecture, the main block of the house was constructed about 1800 on a lot owned by Magnus Tate II, a prominent Jefferson County attorney and legislator. In 1803 the property was leased by Ferdinando Fairfax, great-nephew of both George Washington and Thomas Lord Fairfax and one of the country’s first justices of the peace.
-
Second Free Black School in Jefferson County
Between Summit Point Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue
Built in 1874, this one-story brick building still stands today. It is located next to the Zion Baptist Church. The school’s first teacher, Littleton L. Page, served for 40 years.
-
Jacob Stone House
-
Presbyterian Church
220 East Washington Street
A classic example of Greek revival architecture, this church was built in 1851 on land given by John Stephenson. Having served as a hospital both for Union and Confederate troops, it was the only church in town not damaged by the Civil War. The steeple was added in 1907.
-
Vinton Manor
Route 340 – Berryville Pike
Vinton Farm, historically known as the Jacks- Manning Farm, lies between route 340 and Augustine Avenue, in Charles Town. The house was originally constructed for a prominent Jefferson County planter, Robert Jacks. Robert Jacks, married Julia Davenport, member of one of Jefferson County’s most prominent families. Abraham Davenport, her father, was one of the first Justices of the Peace when Jefferson County was formed in 1801. In 1859, he was chief Justice of the Jefferson County magistrates Court, and presided over the incarceration of John Brown.
-
Brown-Shugart House
633 South Samuel Street
This spacious Victorian home was commissioned by Forrest Washington Brown for his bride Emma Beverly Tucker in 1885. It was built by local architect Julius C. Holmes who also expanded the home in 1890 by adding his and hers bathrooms, two more bedrooms, a study, a formal foyer and a ballroom. The home was purchased from the Browns by Leland and Mildred Shugart in the 1940s, who became hosts to the celebrated Charles Town New Years Eve parties.
-
Shenandoah Valley Railroad Train Station
Route 51, or Middleway Pike
Shenandoah Valley Railroad (SVRR) Train Station is Charles Town’s only standing railroad station. Once a bustling stop for the SVRR, it served as stiff competition for the B&O Railroad. Construction on the wood-frame depot began in October 1879 by workers under Julius C. Holmes, a local contractor and architect.
According to the Spirit of Jefferson, the building was expected to be “capacious, handsome and convenient,” as well as providing “a neat and comfortable waiting room, telegraph and ticket office, and express and freight rooms.” Unfortunately, in October 1887 the station was destroyed by a fire in the waiting room. Plans to restore the depot were quickly underway, and in April 1888 the rebuilt depot was deemed “pleasing and convenient” by the Spirit of Jefferson.
In September 1890, the SVRR went bankrupt and was reorganized as the Shenandoah Valley Railway, though by December of that year it became part of Norfolk &Western Railway. In 1903 improvements were made at the depot. It was moved back from the railroad by five feet and the office was enlarged and a baggage room added on the south side. Eventually a new station was built to the Southeast and the depot was moved to a new foundation on Altona Farm.
-
Rankin House
309 West Liberty Street
Lot number 14 was sold to Mrs. Benjamin Rankin (Judith) for 5 pounds sterling and 3 shillings. Mrs. Rankin was the wife of the late Benjamin Rankin who was one of the petitioners who signed the petition with Charles Washington seeking recognition of Charlestown by the Virginia Assembly in 1786. The petition was granted in 1787. Mr. Rankin did not live long enough to see what would become of the town he helped found. His widow Judith chose to move into town. This part of Charles Town was the most established at that time. The oldest part of the home is a log structure built circa 1789-1791. The street level being lower at the time of construction displays an exterior batten door slightly below the current street level. The limestone step used to step down to the door level is the original limestone block used originally to assist ladies into waiting carriages in front of the home. The paneled front door is believed to date from the 1790s. The cooking kitchen was originally located at the rear of the home. About 1810 an addition was added by subsequent owners adding a formal dining room with the cooking kitchen relocated to the east wing of the house. In modern times the kitchen was relocated back to the rear of the home. The interior still retains its original woodwork and of particular note is the barrel vaulting of the walls in the front parlor with original curved chair moldings. The 1810 formal dining room still retains its original fireplace mantel with a modified Chippendale frieze showing Adam influence of the period. Interior space is largely unchanged since its construction circa 1789. A room believed to have been slave quarters is still present within in the structure.
-
Stribling House (now the Carriage Inn)
417 East Washington Street
Dr. Taliaferro Stribling commissioned construction of this house in 1836. When Thomas Rutherford purchased it in 1858, he paid $800 for the two-story brick structure and the adjacent lots that comprise the block between Church and Seminary Streets. During the Civil War, Union General Philip Sheridan occupied the house as his headquarters. It was here that Gen. Ulysses S. Grant and Gen. Sheridan met to plan the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign.
-
Webb House
303 East North Street
The Webb House was built between 18 July 1829 and 25 October 1830. This stone dwelling was built for and by free African-Americans and represents one of the earliest stone buildings owned by freemen. The home was built by James Henry Webb on lot number 81. Isaac and Charlotte Gray identified in the Charles Town deed books as “persons of colour” purchased the land on 18 July 1829. It was while Mr. & Mrs. Gray owned the property that James Webb built the stone structure. The home was purchased by Patty Webb the mother of James Henry Webb for $27 on 25 October 1830. This structure represents an important remaining structure owned by “free negroes” during the time before emancipation.