The Hart House

The Hart House. The Breakthrough Trail. Charles H. Carr, a native of New York, purchased twenty acres from the Boisseaus of Tudor Hall in March 1859. He began construction of the house in front of you shortly afterwards. Carr died in July 1862 while enlisted in the Confederate army. In November of that year, his widow sold the house and property to John Hart, a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Hart completed the house and grew market crops on the farm. Most of Hart’s neighbors along Duncan Road to the south also operated small farms that provided produce to the residents of nearby Petersburg. Hart enlisted in the Confederate army in April 1864, leaving the farm in the hands of his wife, Mary., In September 1864, Confederate soldiers moved into the area and began building earthworks to protect the Boydton Plank Road and South Side Railroad. Following the Battle of Peebles’s Farm in October, troops of Brigadier General William MacRae’s North Carolina Brigade set up winter quarters near the house. During the winter, they improved the rudimentary entrenchments that crossed the property., The fruit trees are blooming very fast here. Our encampments are in a large ‘Orchard’ in front of Mrs. Hart’s house. Her house is in the same camp. The line runs through her yard. She still stays here. She goes down into the Cellar when they commence shelling. , - Corporal Benjamin H. Freeman, Company K, 44th North Carolina Infantry Regiment, Sidebar: The Hart House is a cottage built in the Gothic Revival style, known as “Carpenter Gothic” in North America. This new style adorned modest wood frame cottages with scrolled ornamentation and lacy trim, many of them built according to pattern-book models. The newly invented scroll-saw allowed carpenters to create the delicate bargeboard trim called “gingerbread,” which hangs from the gable end of these houses., Alexander Jackson Davis (1803-1892), an architect, introduced the Gothic Revival form to America. During his career, Davis designed many public buildings, including the barracks, professors’ residences and other buildings at the Virginia Military Institute. His 1837 book, Rural Residences, included the Dutchess County, New York, home depicted at left. Notice that it is nearly identical to the design of the Hart House.