2408 Bainbridge St
Richmond, VA, USA

National Register of Historic Places - Weisiger-Carroll House (VDHR No. 127-850)

Statement of Significant:

The Weisiger-Carroll house at 2408 Bainbridge Street is among the few remaining dwellings of early Manchester, a town established by the House of Burgesses of colonial Virginia in 1769 and annexed by the city of Richmond in 1910. The simple weatherboarded structure with its high brick basement follows a pattern that apparently was common for the Manchester community's Federal-period vernacular dwellings, nearly all of which have disappeared. The exact construction date is unknown but the house was built on land originally owned by John Mayo, Manchester's leading landowner and entrepreneur. It may have been built by Mayo around 1800 but more likely it was built soon after 1816 when the property was purchased by Richard Kendall Weisiger. The house served as a hospital during the Civil War and more than one hundred Confederate soldiers who died there lie buried in a cemetery behind the house. During the late nineteenth century, the property was owned by members of the Carroll family who were instrumental in founding the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Manchester.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The town of Manchester was founded by act of Virginia's colonial House of Burgesses in 1769 on Chesterfield County land originally owned by William Byrd III known as Rocky Ridge. Like Richmond immediately across the river, Manchester grew from trading posts established at the falls of the James. The town was originally laid off into 312 lots surveyed by Benjamin Watkins. Manchester remained a separate community until it was annexed by Richmond in 1910.
Most of the development of Manchester was concentrated at its northern end, near the river and north of Cowardin Avenue. Until the present century, development south of Cowardin was scattered. The 1876 Beers Atlas Map of Manchester shows the Weisiger-Carroll house with only three or four other dwellings nearby, although the area had by then been laid off in lots continuing the grid of the original town.
Despite the fact that it was on the fringes of Manchester proper, the Weisiger-Carroll house follows the vernacular form characteristic of many of the simple frame houses erected in Manchester during the early nineteenth century, nearly all of which have disappeared. Typical of such houses, the Weisiger-Carroll house is a plain single-pile frame structure with a gable roof and a hall/parlor floorplan. It is given distinction by being set on a high brick basement. A largely rebuilt shed-roofed porch stretches across the rear. Several outbuildings once stood on the property but none remains.
The exact construction date of the Weisiger-Carroll house is unknown.' Manchester historian Benjamin B. Weisiger stated that the house was built around 1790-1800 by John Mayo, although it is reasonable to believe that it was built soon after 1816, the year the property was purchased from Mayo by Richard Kendall Weisiger.2 The use of American bond in the rear wall and Flemish bond on the front of a high brick basement was a common practice in the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Tradition has it that the house originally served as a tavern but this use has not been documented.

The house was sold by the Weisiger family to William Henry Jones in 1852. In 1853 it was acquired by Patrick Baird. It passed into the Carroll family upon the marriage of Baird's widow to John A. Carroll and became known as the Homestead. Carroll was an Irish Catholic who was instrumental in founding the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Manchester and permitted the first Catholic Sunday school in Manchester to be held in the Bainbridge Street house in 1876. The property remained in Carroll family ownership until the 1950s.

During the Civil War the property served as a field hospital for Confederate wounded, using the house as well as the several outbuildings that originally stood on the lot. Adjacent to the property is a parcel of land, maintained by the city of Richmond, where soldiers who died at the hospital are buried. On the parcel is a marker with the following inscription:

HERE REST MORE THAT ONE HUNDRED
SOUTH CAROLINA SOLDIERS WHO DIED
IN THE HOSPITAL IN MANCHESTER VA.
1861-1865
ELLIOTT GRAYS CHAPTER
UNITED DAUGHTERS OF THE CONFEDERACY
ERECTED OCTOBER 6, 1939

A former owner stated that immediately after the fall of Richmond to Union forces, the property served as quarters for Union soldiers who are said to have camped on the lawn and were fed from the kitchen.3 Union uniform buttons have been found on the grounds."
By the 1970s the Weisiger-Carroll house had fallen into a neglected state. It was purchased by David Townsend, a police officer, who restored the house himself in 1983. The restoration involved rebuilding the south chimney and the removal of a later addition on the southeast corner. The house stands today in good condition, maintaining a high degree of architectural integrity for a vernacular structure.