York Hall, also called Thomas Nelson House, and Captain George Preston Blow House, is an historic Colonial home in Yorktown, Virginia. It was built around 1730 and held by generations of the Nelson family through the Revolutionary War. After years in private ownership, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966.
It was acquired by the National Park Service in 1968 and restored in 1976 to its 18th-century character. It is also a contributing property to Colonial National Historical Park in Yorktown and among the battlefield attractions.
History
The house was built by Thomas "Scotch Tom" Nelson around 1730, and later occupied by his grandson, Founding Father Thomas Nelson, Jr. (1738-1789) during the American Revolutionary War. Nelson, Jr., who signed the Declaration of Independence as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress, was a planter, politician, and later governor of Virginia.
The house was used as a temporary headquarters by Lord Cornwallis, and a cannonball fired at siege of Yorktown is still lodged in one of the walls. It served as a hospital during the Civil War.
In 1914, it was purchased by Captain and Mrs. George P. Blow, who renamed it as "York Hall," by which name it was referred to in much of the historical literature of the time. The Blow family made a number of additions to update the property, which were designed by Griffin & Wynkoop.
In 1968, the National Park Service bought the property. It restored the house in 1976 to its 18th-century character."Walter Eugene George, Jr. Collection: 1951-2007", Alexander Architectural Archive, University of Texas at Austin Libraries. Retrieved 2010-11-29. It has been designated as the Thomas Nelson House, a National Historical Landmark. It is also a contributing property to the Yorktown Battlefield Part of Colonial National Historical Park. It is open for tours as part of the Yorktown Battlefield attractions.
Haunting The property is supposed to have been haunted by the spirit of a Redcoat soldier who was killed when Thomas Nelson, Jr. let the Marquis de Lafayette fire on his own house. It is one of many such stories in the Yorktown area linked to the Revolutionary War.
References
External links
Nelson House - Yorktown Battlefield Waymarking.com Rememberyorktown.org