901 South East Street

— South East Street Historic District —

Photographed By Devry Becker Jones (CC0), April 9, 2021

1. 901 South East Street Marker

Although

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the ca. 1860 house has been enlarged several times, the Martin House retains the character-defining features and qualities of a traditional, nineteenth-century, wood-frame house with a three-bay front facade, 6/6 sash windows, 6-light transom, sidelights, bracketed cornice, hipped roof, end chimneys, and central hall plan. The existing 2-story brick wing and kitchen was built in 1907 on the site of the original detached kitchen. The porch and breezeway that originally connected the kitchen were enclosed to provide and enclosed passageway to the English basement dining room. The wing added to the south front of the house provides an additional bedroom, den, and sun porch. The original portion of the house retains its five fireplaces and Greek Revival-style mantels. The precise date of building house has been difficult to determine precisely, but it was probably built ca.1855–1860. Colonel James Cochran, the Postmaster of Culpeper, owned the property for much of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The house has long been associated with family members of John H. Clarke, a partner of the Culpeper Brick Company, who died intestate in 1916. The brick company owned the house at Clarke’s death. By 1920, his widow Gertrude Clarke was able to purchase the property at an auction held to settle the legalities of actual ownership of the property; members of her family

Photographed By Devry Becker Jones (CC0), April 9, 2021

2. 901 South East Street

have lived in the house continuously. Her daughter Eleanor married Thomas Irving (T. I.) Martin, later Mayor of Culpeper, and they lived adjacent at 809 South East Street until moving to this house and buying it during Mrs. Clarke’s illness; their son and daughter–in-law William Herndon Martin and Rose Marie Martin still own and live in the house today. T.I. Martin was a long-time mayor of Culpeper, and Culpeper’s airport. T. I. Martin Field was named for him. This property retains the only barn associated with an East Street house. The large gable-roofed, aged wooden barn occupies a site east of the house overlooking the railroad tracks to the east, and Mrs. Clarke once operated the Sunnybrook Dairy out of the barn. An English barn with shed-roofed bays open to the south, it is a rare survivor of its type in Culpeper, and represents the district’s rural past. Bordered by English and American boxwoods, the original flower gardens and rose beds have granite curbstone edges; the granite stones were salvaged from Culpeper streets. There are also granite curbstone benches placed throughout the gardens to the site of the old tennis court.