1830s log cabin to be part of Appomattox Museum of the Confederacy

By Sarah Watson

Published: October 31, 2008

Slightly hidden on land that will soon be home to the Appomattox branch of the Museum of the Confederacy is what seems to be an abandoned house built in the 1920s.

But when the soon-to-be former landowner began tearing the structure down, he discovered the house was actually a log cabin from the 1830s.

“It was a surprise to us and the property owner,” said Museum of the Confederacy director S. Waite Rawls. “(The property owner) went up there to demolish it, knowing we didn’t want the house. He had just started when he discovered it.”

The logs are mostly covered with siding and plaster and are only barely visible from the inside, but Rawls said the building will eventually play an important role as a living history exhibit at the first of three expansion sites of the Richmond-based museum.

“It was definitely there during the war,” Rawls said. “It gives us the opportunity to restore not only the cabin, but what a little homestead of the period would have looked like.”

Tuesday, Appomattox town council unanimously approved purchasing the property, which will be leased to the museum, for $325,000.

The Appomattox County site, at the corner of Virginia 24 and U.S. 460, is about halfway between Appomattox Courthouse National Historic Park and the town’s commercial district.

The museum announced in September 2007 that it would be creating three expansion sites throughout the state, as a way to put more of its collection of Civil War artifacts on display than what is possible at its Richmond site.

Appomattox, along with the Fredericksburg area and Fort Monroe in Tidewater, was chosen because of its historical significance, Rawls said. Each site will feature exhibits based on themes unique to those locations, including the start of the war in Richmond, the sacrifice of life in Fredericksburg and the end of the war and reunification in Appomattox, he said.

The goal is to open all three sites along with a new Richmond exhibit in 2011 to mark the 150th anniversary of the start of the war, Rawls said.

Appomattox’s timeline will see construction likely begin in fall 2009, with the building complete and ready to open by early spring 2011, just in time to mark the anniversary, Rawls said.

While designs have yet to be finalized, the museum’s building will be one story and blend into the landscape, Rawls said. The museum has hired Williamsburg-based architect Carlton Abbott because “he has a distinguished record of working a building into the historical landscape and making it fit the landscape,” Rawls said. “We wanted it to look like a natural part of what Appomattox looked like then, almost like it’s an extension of the National Park.”

That look includes split-rail fences on the property, with the building’s exterior of rough wood and stone, Rawls said.

The museum currently is in its “quiet” fundraising stage of raising the $5 million to $6 million needed for the project, Rawls said. “With the volatility of the financial markets and the economy you never know, but it’s moving along just fine so far.”

In addition to a couple of large pledges already made, the Virginia Tobacco Indemnification and Community Revitalization Commission has given $300,000.

“The Tobacco Commission says there’s enough stuff going on U.S. 460 to make it a real draw,” Rawls said “and they have been an enthusiastic supporter of this project.”