The Houses at Walney

The Houses at Walney. Ellanor C. Lawrence Park. , In 1843, not one, but two houses stood at Walney that were lived in during the nineteenth century., In April 1843, Lewis Machen, a clerk for the United States Senate, purchased the dilapidated 725 acre farm that later became known as Walney. On the property were several residential structures, including the stone house that you see in front of you, constructed in 1780, and a wooden frame house that stood just to the left of the stone house. Lewis lived at Walney with his wife, Caroline, and his three children Arthur, James, and Emmeline., In a letter from Lewis Machen to B. Sanders in June 1843, Lewis described the property:,

The place I have purchased is a large one, lying near Centreville. The soil, originally good, is greatly reduced by long cultivation and exceedingly bad management. The tenement in which I shall reside, a Virginia Cottage, [is] barely sufficient to afford shelter and enable us to sleep and eat, without exposure to the elements…

, Why did the Machens have two houses? , The Machens used the wooden frame house as their primary residence. Historians do not know what the house looked like, but Lewis thought it was outdated and in need of repair. In a letter to Mr. Wever, in July 1843, he wrote:,

…[the] ceilings are only 7 feet 3 inches high; that an incision had to be made in the floor for the insertion of the Old Family Clock; and the Stoop is a little too low for the present generation.

, The stone house used as a study and family library was also in need of repair. In a letter from Caroline Machen to Lewis in December 1843, she described a few of the repairs made to the stone house:,

…I have had all the boxes and the piazza moved into the stone house. The plastering is getting dry but not enough so to put up the books.

, Making these houses a home. , Lewis and his family spent the following decades making improvements to the property until the Civil War began. by the end of the war, both houses still stood. However, the property was raided by Federal troops in August 1862 The property was damaged and supplies were taken, leaving the Machens with little., It took years after the Civil War for the farm to be profitable again under James' management. James, his wife, Georgina Chichester, and their four children lived in the frame house until December 30th, 1874, when the frame house was destroyed by a chimney fire. The Machens then renovated their stone house and moved into it as their primary residence.