Rippon Lodge is one of the oldest houses remaining in

Prince William County Prince William County lies beside the Potomac River in the Commonwealth of Virginia. At the 2020 census, the population was 482,204, making it Virginia's second most populous county. The county seat is the independent city of Manassas. A part ...

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States between the East Coast of the United States ...

, United States, and listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

since 1971. Built around 1747 by Richard Blackburn (1705-1757) as the main residence and headquarters of his plantation, it lies on high ground overlooking

Neabsco Creek Neabsco Creek is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 tributary of the lower tidal segment of the Potomac River in eastern Prince William County, Virginia. ...

at the south end of what is now the unincorporated town of Woodbridge at 15520 Blackburn Road. The house takes its name from Richard Blackburn's birthplace, the small city of

Ripon Ripon () is a cathedral city and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. The city is located at the confluence of two tributaries of the River Ure, the Laver and Skell. Within the boundaries of the historic West Riding of Yorkshire, the ...

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

History

The

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...

is located along a remnant of the original Kings Highway (now known as the "

Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route The Washington–Rochambeau Revolutionary Route is a series of roads used in 1781 by the Continental Army under the command of George Washington and the ''Expédition Particulière'' under the command of Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau during the ...

" ). This vital roadway connected the 13 original colonies, stretching from

Newport, Rhode Island Newport is a seaside city on Aquidneck Island in Rhode Island, United States. It is located in Narragansett Bay, approximately southeast of Providence, Rhode Island, Providence, south of Fall River, Massachusetts, south of Boston, and nort ...

Charleston, South Carolina Charleston is the List of municipalities in South Carolina, most populous city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The city lies just south of the geographical midpoint of South Carolina's coastline on Charleston Harbor, an inlet of the Atla ...

. It played a vital role in the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

, in part because colonial troops marched on this section before defeating the British at Yorktown. Originally a

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

plantation Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...

, at its greatest extent under Richard Blackburn (ca. 1706-1757) who had emigrated with his brother from Ripon in Yorkshire, England in 1720, it managed land holdings which stretched from Neabsco Creek westward to near what is now

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from U.S. Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, north to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the ...

and amounted to about 21,000 acres (85 km²). The property featured its own port on Neabsco Creek and is close to the town of

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...

, once the county seat until the Quantico River silted up early in the 19th century. In 1796,

Benjamin Henry Latrobe Benjamin Henry Boneval Latrobe (May 1, 1764 – September 3, 1820) was a British-American Neoclassical architecture, neoclassical architect who immigrated to the United States. He was one of the first formally trained, professional architects in ...

painted the plantation house. Richard Blackburn farmed and built this and other houses using enslaved labor. At his death, the house passed to his son, Col. Thomas Blackburn who represented Prince William County several times in the

House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses () was the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly from 1619 to 1776. It existed during the colonial history of the United States in the Colony of Virginia in what was then British America. From 1642 to 1776, the Hou ...

, then in most of the Virginia Revolutionary Conventions, before becoming an aide-de-camp to General George Washington, until wounded at the Battle of Germantown. His son Richard Scott Blackburn would also represent Prince William County, in the

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

. Thomas Blackburn corresponded with

Thomas Jefferson Thomas Jefferson (, 1743July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. He was the primary author of the United States Declaration of Indepe ...

and also did business with

Bushrod Washington Bushrod Washington (June 5, 1762 – November 26, 1829) was an American attorney and politician who served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1798 to 1829. On the Supreme Court, he was a staunch ally of Chi ...

who inherited his uncle's Mount Vernon plantation as well as married one of Thomas Blackburn's daughters. Rippon Lodge remained in Blackburn family hands until around 1820, when it was sold to the Atkinson family, who also farmed using enslaved labor until after the American Civil War, and whose members lived there for about another century. In 1923 the property was sold again. The buyers were former Ohio Attorney General Wade H. Ellis and his wife Dessie, who had moved to Washington, D.C. after Wade Ellis accepted a position as assistant to the U.S. Attorney General. The Ellises both renovated and preserved the property. Sometime after buying Rippon Lodge, Ellis discovered Richard Blackburn was his ancestor, but it remains unclear at what point during his tenure this became known and how much it influenced the preservation efforts. After Wade Ellis died, Mrs. Ellis sold the house to another Blackburn family member, Admiral Richard Blackburn Black, an Arctic explorer and compatriot of

Admiral Byrd Richard Evelyn Byrd Jr. (October 25, 1888 – March 11, 1957) was an American naval officer, and pioneering aviator, polar explorer, and organizer of polar logistics. Aircraft flights in which he served as a navigator and expedition leader cr ...

. Admiral Black's daughter inherited the house in 1989 and sold it to Prince William County in 2000. The house and grounds are now maintained by the Prince William County Department of Parks and Recreation, and by a local friends organization.

Hours

Prince William County has restored the house and maintains the surrounding of property. Rippon Lodge is open to the public from May through October on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from 11am to 4pm.

References

External links

Prince William County, Virginia - Rippon Lodge
- official site
The history of the Prince William County Waterfront
* ttp://www.pwconserve.org/issues/history/index.html Historic Preservation/Archeology in Prince William County: Rippon Lodgebr>Rippon Lodge (An article originally published in 1932)Rippon Lodge, State Route 638, Woodbridge, Prince William County, VA
9 photos and 9 measured drawings at

Historic American Buildings Survey The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

{{National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Historic house museums in Virginia Museums in Prince William County, Virginia Plantation houses in Virginia Georgian architecture in Virginia Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Houses in Prince William County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Prince William County, Virginia Historic American Buildings Survey in Virginia