Laurel Hill Online Tour
"I would give anything to make a pilgrimage to the old place and when the war is over to quietly spend the rest of my days there." -- J. E. B. Stuart 1863
The 2002 Virginia Historical Highway Marker written by Tom Perry replaced the 1933 marker believed written by Douglas S. Freeman is surrounded by the "Yellow For The Cavalry" forsythia planted by Betty Hobbs Perry. All interpretive signs about the history of Laurel Hill written by Tom Perry including eight on the history, Virginia Historical Highway Marker and Virginia Civil War Trails sign.
Laurel Hill is open dawn to dusk for self guided tours every day except the first full weekend of October when the annual Civil War encampment is held. Groups interested in guided tours by Tom Perry should contact freestateofpatrick@yahoo.com. This webpage shows what you can see and do 363 days a year at Laurel Hill on your own if you choose to make your own pilgrimage to Stuart's Birthplace, the Laurel Hill Farm.
Left, Laurel Hill entrance in 2007. Right Laurel Hill entrance in 1990 before preservation effort began.
Laurel Hill is on the Virginia Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places
Laurel Hill is part of the Virginia Historical Highway Marker Program.
The Entrance Sign located at the main entrance to Laurel Hill.
Left, entrance road into Laurel Hill in 2006. Right, same view in 1990 before preservation efforts began at Laurel Hill.
Laurel Hill is part of Virginia's Civil War Trail System.
The Visitor's Center hosts the Virginia Civil War Trails Sign and a new storage building.
Above, entrance road crossing the old road bed at Laurel Hill. Below left, looking at this site from the opposite view from on top of the hill back towards the road in 1990 before the preservation effort began. Below right similar view in 2006.
A small part of the old road bed that connected Mount Airy, North Carolina, to what is today Stuart, Virginia, is preserved at Laurel Hill.
The marker denoting Laurel Hill's place on the Virginia Historical Landmarks Register and the National Register of Historic Places sits beside the old road bed with one of the eight interpretive markers about the history of the property at the intersection with the old farm road that is now paved as the main entrance road to the property.
Native American History At Laurel Hill
Click Here To Learn More About Native-American History at Laurel Hill
African-American History at Laurel Hill
Click Here To Learn More About African-American History at Laurel Hill
The Slave Cemetery at Laurel Hill offers an opportunity to sit and reflect on a part of our history that is does not show the best side of our ancestors, but it is a part of history that we should face head on and this part of Laurel Hill gives the visitor a chance to think about it.
Laurel Hill Memorial Garden
The Memorials placed around the flag pole near the house site at Laurel Hill honor those who made contributions to the preservation of Laurel Hill. Erie Meredith and Betty Hobbs Perry were the first honorees.
Stuart Family History At Laurel Hill
The house site at Laurel Hill where J. E. B. Stuart was born in 1833. The house built around 1830 burned by 1848.
Above left is the house site where James Ewell Brown Stuart was born on February 6, 1833, looking towards Groundhog Mountain of the Blue Ridge Mountains the Appalachians. Above right is the house site looking towards the kitchen and Native-American sites at Laurel Hill.
Above left, view that Artist Pat Woltz used in painting Laurel Hill 1842. Note locust trees no longer at Laurel Hill are at left front of the house. Actual house site is on the other side of the locust trees and slightly further north than the painting that was completed before archaeology was completed by the College of William and Mary.
Left, kitchen site at Laurel Hill in 2007. Right, approximately the same spot in 1990 before the preservation effort began.
Above the kitchen site at Laurel Hill. The house burned in 1847-48 and Stuart wrote that his father and brother John were living in the kitchen.
The Letcher Overlook provides a vista to look across the Ararat River Valley to the Dellenback-Mitchell House and the five acres owned by the J. E. B. Stuart Birthplace on the other side of the river. Seventy acres are owned on the former Brown land giving the Birthplace 75 acres of the 1500 acres owned by the Stuart Family at Laurel Hill.
Stuart Family Cemetery was the resting place of Archibald Stuart from his death in 1855 until 1952 when he was removed to Saltville to lay beside his wife Elizabeth Letcher Pannill Stuart. Two of their children are believed buried across the river with their great-grandfather William Letcher per the deed that sold Laurel Hill in 1859 out of the Stuart Family and not as this site denotes.
Below, across the Ararat River from the Stuart Cemetery is the grave of William Letcher, great-grandfather of J. E. B. Stuart, who was killed at the age of 30 by Tories, pro-British sympathizers during the American Revolution in August 1780. This is the only recognizable feature of the Laurel Hill Farm that J. E. B. Stuart would recognize if he came back today to his birthplace.
Other Histories Related To Laurel Hill
The Mount Airy and Eastern Railroad "The Dinky"
History Along The Ararat River
