Historic Gardens of Virginia 



At this time his mother moved into the Falls cottage, a commo- 

 dious brick house, now in existence near the site of the original 

 dwelling. 



Of the six children of Francis III and Anne Thornton, Francis 

 IV was the only son. His mother brought to Fall Hill with her 

 Katina, an Indian woman, who had attended her from her infancy, 

 who had been given originally to Governor Spotswood by an 

 itinerant tribe of Indians when he was on one of his many exploring 

 expeditions to the Blue Ridge Mountains. Francis IV personally 

 told Colonel James Innes Thornton of Alabama, his son, that he 

 could remember Katina's taking him and his five sisters into the 

 woods and covering them with leaves while she called, with strange 

 and beautiful cries, the birds of the forest, which would come and 

 rest around them. Her grave is still well marked among six old 

 oaks back of the Fall Hill house. After this, Francis Thornton 

 was always a friend of the Indians, and the latter frequently called 

 upon him at Fall Hill when they were passing near the place. 



In 1837, when Francis Thornton IV died, his family scattered, 

 and for some years the place was tenanted by the family nurse, 

 Mammy Nancy. In 1843, his granddaughter, Bessie Forbes, in- 

 herited it in part. After her marriage to Dr. John R. Taylor, the 

 latter, by purchase, added to his wife's portion many acres of the 

 original plantation. 



In 1868, General Robert E. Lee was a guest at Fall Hill, and 

 Mrs. Taylor, who then owned the place, called his attention to the 

 shattered trunk of a tree, the top of which had been shot away 

 by a Federal cannon. Though rapidly being overgrown with ivy, 

 Mrs. Taylor was preserving this tree trunk as an object of historic 

 interest. Instead of showing the interest she expected. General Lee 

 advised her not to preserve it at all, but to obliterate as far as 

 possible every trace of the unfortunate war. 



Mrs. Taylor died in 1876, and upon her husband's death in 

 1882 the property was divided by lot among his four sons and one 

 daughter, Bessie Thompson Taylor. The house, with considerable 



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