Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

A Visit to Our Rebellion’s Home

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by

Dick Hall-Sizemore
in

Bacon’s Castle, Surry,Va.

Preservation Virginia will present a virtual tour this afternoon of Bacon’s Castle.  Here is the description of this Virginia historic landmark:

Bacon’s Castle is the oldest brick dwelling in North America and was once the home of Arthur Allen, a prosperous merchant and planter, and his family. Allen’s Brick House earned the moniker “Bacon’s Castle” in 1676 when several of Nathaniel Bacon’s men occupied the home for four months during the uprising that became known as Bacon’s Rebellion.

The tour is at 2 p.m.  If you are interested, here is the link.

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19 responses to “A Visit to Our Rebellion’s Home”

  1. LarrytheG Avatar
    LarrytheG

    Very Cool!

  2. Peter Galuszka Avatar
    Peter Galuszka

    Yep, our bacon was a sadistic killer of Native Americans. Not exactly a “social justist activist” but a maniac

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Don’t forget, he died of dysentery. If only there had been a department of health to inspect wells, and a governor who could lock them down. Oh… the irony.

    2. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
      James Wyatt Whitehead V

      Nathaniel Bacon also married Sir Duke’s daughter without the nobleman’s permission. Very naughty!

    3. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
      Reed Fawell 3rd

      “Yep, our bacon was a sadistic killer of Native Americans.”

      Careful, Peter, he’s kin.

      1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead V

        Nathaniel Bacon was only here for 29 years. I have often wondered what would have become of the rebellion had Bacon survived? It took a lot of guts to post the “Declaration of the People of Virginia” back in 1676.

      2. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
        Reed Fawell 3rd

        Yes, I agree.

        It’s a hugely complicated story, full of contradictions, ironies, cross currents, where the facts have been bent far out of shape and submerged deep under many layers of legend, propaganda, romanticism, and politicizing. Is Bacon hero or goat, thief or military genius, or blackguard or turncoat. Some day a great historian will unearth, dig up all the facts and truths, synthesize them, and at long last, give Bacon, warts and all, the history he and the events themselves deserve. Likely all of today’s heavily freighted race baiting historians have put off that great history another century or so. But you never know.

        1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
          James Wyatt Whitehead V

          Don’t worry Mr. Reed. Bacon’s story will long out last modern revisionist historians.

  3. James A. Bacon Avatar
    James A. Bacon

    Ironically, Bacon never set foot in the Allen house. But the building itself is an architectural treasure — one of the oldest surviving buildings in the United States and a rare example of Jacobean architecture in the American colonies. It’s well worth visiting.

  4. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
    James Wyatt Whitehead V

    There is nothing like Bacon’s Castle anywhere. Interior was very simple. I expected the opposite. The trip across the James on the Scotland auto ferry was a lot of fun too.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      I had the same reaction to Mount Vernon and other colonial mansions like Stratford Hall and the John Marshall House in Richmond–very simple interiors.

      1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
        James Wyatt Whitehead V

        At one time I was on the board at Prestwould Plantation. One of the best kept tourist secrets in Southside Virginia. Visit this place! It is magnificent. They even have million dollar wall paper that came all the way from Paris, France way back in 1790. I will never forget cataloging Lady Jean Skipwith’s massive book collection. Happened to come across a signed copy of Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia. I believe that is the only book TJ ever published.

        http://travelwithterryvirginia.blogspot.com/2009/10/prestwould-plantation.html

        1. LarrytheG Avatar
          LarrytheG

          Never heard of this place James – and I thought I knew all of Virginia’s nooks and crannies… Thanks!

          worth a trip when all this mess subsides………..

          also recognize that a good many of these magnificent mansions were built by slaves.

          1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
            James Wyatt Whitehead V

            Mr. Larry we live in such a great state. Nothing better than the history, culture, and scenic wonders of Virginia. Let me know when you are going and I will furnish the tour for you. 90% of the furnishing are still in the house. I believe Sir Peyton Skipwith was the only American allowed to retain the title of “Sir”.

          2. LarrytheG Avatar
            LarrytheG

            Thank you James… and at some point, let me know how to get in touch…. thanks!

      2. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
        Reed Fawell 3rd

        “Stratford Hall and the John Marshall House in Richmond–very simple interiors.”

        The simple house interior promotes the complexity of the owners interior, and often vice versa. How odd by today’s styles.

        John Marshall grew up poor, and ill educated formally, 1 year, one of 15 siblings in a one room cabin, a Jefferson poor relation, a grandma had “married beneath her station.” But Marshall self educated himself into a man of penetrating intelligence, and practical common sense, the latter quality likely enhanced by his equally great and underrated Virginian James Monroe.

        1. James Wyatt Whitehead V Avatar
          James Wyatt Whitehead V

          Mr. Reed did you know that John Marshall has a pyramid at his birthplace in Fauquier? One of my next reading topics is Marshall’s biography of George Washington.

          http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ovdt_L6YOoI/TwyHNDOhqpI/AAAAAAAABPE/lOYTWQ2vIOo/CL3JohnMarshallBirthplaceVA7_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800

          1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
            Reed Fawell 3rd

            James Wyatt Whitehead V, thank you.

            John Marshall is one of my all time heroes. An incredible man who came from nowhere to change America, its course, and its history, by the force of his character, his keen intellect, and his very rough and tumble life experience, honed to steel in the real world. He is very special. No one gave John Marshall anything. What he earned he did largely by his own force of character. He is the truest of American heroes, and of huge and largely unrecognized consequence, in my view.

            Many Americans past and present are like John Marshall. Thank God for that.

  5. vaconsumeradvocate Avatar
    vaconsumeradvocate

    It’s an interesting structure. If you haven’t seen it or haven’t in a while, it’s well worth the time and what a great opportunity!

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