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AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 



November, 1907 



Historic Mansions of the James River 



III. — "Westover," the Ancestral Home of the Byrds, Now the Ramsay Homestead 



By Francis Durando Nichols 



|ESTOVER, which lies on the north bank of 

 the James River, about half way between 

 Martin's Brandon and Shirley, is one of the 

 oldest and most beautiful of the old-time 

 properties in Virginia. 



The plantation was laid out by Sir John 

 Pawlett, the original patent having been 

 Issued to his brother, Thomas Pawlett, January 15, 1631. 

 In 1665 it passed into the hands of Theodoric Bland, from 

 whom William Byrd purchased it in 1688. It consisted of 

 two thousand acres of land, for which he paid 300 pounds 

 sterling and ten thousand pounds of tobacco. 



On the summit of a bluff which rises abruptly from the 

 James River, and some two hundred yards back from the 

 terraced sea-wall, William Byrd proceeded to build the 

 Mansion House of Westover. Though he owned consider- 

 able land in the neighborhood and could have placed his resi- 



dence wherever he thought proper, he chose this site upon 

 which Westover is built, for the reason that Nature had 

 endowed it magnificently, with its high plateau gracefully 

 studded with fine trees and shrubs, and the mansion was 

 erected in due order and in such a position that it was placed 

 just far enough from the river to Insure the retirement which 

 he sought. The main approach to the house Is through a 

 lofty gateway, the stone pillars of which are about ten feet 

 high and are surmounted by eagles. From these stone pil- 

 lars swing handsome gates of hammered iron, which were 

 made In England for Colonel Byrd, and are particularly in- 

 teresting as being the first ornamental Iron work brought 

 into America. The monogram of Col. William Byrd Is 

 Interwoven in the scroll at the top of the gate. Extending 

 in either direction from the gateway is an Iron fence, the 

 many posts of which are surmounted by ornamental tops, a 

 different design for each post. Passing through the chief 



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Fine Old Trees Shade the River Front of the House 



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