Woodson Law Office

U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district Contributing property
John W Woodson law office
Location	Appomattox, Virginia
Nearest city	Appomattox, Virginia
Built	1845-1860
Architectural style	Single family house
NRHP reference No.	66000827
Added to NRHP	October 15, 1966

The Woodson Law Office is a structure within the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. It was registered in the National Park Service's database of Official Structures on June 26, 1989.

History

The law office building was built between 1851 and 1856. It was purchased by lawyer John W. Woodson in 1856 and he owned it until his death in 1864. It was a working law office during the time of the surrender of Confederate General Lee to the Union commander General Grant on April 9, 1865. The office is similar to a typical nineteenth century attorney's office in a Virginia county. It has, among other items, an attorney's desk and a portrait of George Washington. John W. Woodson was no longer living at the time when General Lee surrendered to General Grant.

Woodson was born March 8, 1824 and died July 1, 1864. There is no confirmed evidence that it was necessarily always occupied by Woodson. He was an attorney that practiced law in the Old Appomattox Court House until his death in 1864. Woodson rented the building from Samuel McDearmon starting on January 1, 1854. He used the building to store his law books, legal documents, and a change of clothing. In 1856 he purchased the building from McDearmon, who was bankrupt by then. Woodson's village office was on the same corner lot as John Sear's blacksmith shop and had a small footprint. Woodson decided to sell the balance of the lot not used by himself to a John Plunkett, who owned the adjacent general store.

In his book A Place Called Appomattox, historian William Marvel describes history of the Woodson law office building in 1854 as follows:

...it was not until the first court day of 1854 that Woodson bought a hasp, hinge, and padlock for the building and a lock for the chest in which he could store a change of clothes.

In their book Plantations and Outdoor Museums in America's Historic South, historians Gerald and Patricia Gutek describes the Woodson law office building in 1856 as follows:

Woodson Law Office, a beige frame building, was purchased in 1856 by John W. Wilson, an attorney who practiced law in Appomattox Court House until his death eight years later.

Later in his book A Place Called Appomattox, historian William Marvel describes additional history of the Woodson law office building in 1864 when John Woodson died of typhoid:

...leaving his wife the little law office at Clover Hill...

Historical significance

The Woodson Law Office has historical value by virtue of its association with the site of General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant at the end the American Civil War. It is important because it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, and method of construction in the nineteenth century in Virginia. The building and resources of the Woodson law office at the Park constitute both a typical county government seat and of a farming community in Piedmont Virginia in the nineteenth century.

Description

Woodson law office business sign

The Woodson Law Office is a single story frame structure that is twelve and a half feet wide by fourteen and a half feet deep. Its construction started as early as 1851 and is post and beam on brick piers with a standing seam gable roof. It is sheathed in weatherboard with six inch exposure. There is an 8-panel door on the east gable front side. The west side has an external common bond brick chimney with a single step and a five course corbelled drip. The south and north sides have 6/6 double-hung sash with ten-inch and twelve-inch lights. It has single full-width shutters with exterior faces of beaded boards laid diagonally.

It was moved from its original location to be connected to north side of the Plunkett-Meeks store before 1874. It presently shows the relationship as it was to the Plunkett-Meeks Store and village scene at the time of surrender of General Lee to General Grant. The National Park Service restored the building in 1959 and in 1985. Within the Park the National Park Service List of Classified Structures identification number is 007786, with the structure number being 21.

Interior

• 
  Cabinet for law books
• 
  Fireplace heating
• 
  Secretary desk

Sources

• Bradford, Ned, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Plume, 1989

• Catton, Bruce, A Stillness at Appomattox, Doubleday 1953, Library of Congress # 53-9982, ISBN 0-385-04451-8

• Catton, Bruce, This Halloeed Ground, Doubleday 1953, Library of Congress # 56-5960

• Chaffin, Tom , 2006. Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah, Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux,.

• Davis, Burke, The Civil War: Strange & Fascinating Facts, Wings Books, 1960 & 1982, ISBN 0-5173715-1-0

• Davis, Burke, To Appomattox - Nine April Days, 1865, Eastern Acorn Press, 1992, ISBN 0-9159921-7-5

• Featherston, Nathaniel Ragland, Appomattox County History and Genealogy, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1998, ISBN 0-8063476-0-0

• Gutek, Patricia, Plantations and Outdoor Museums in America's Historic South, University of South Carolina Press, 1996, ISBN 1-5700307-1-5

• Kaiser, Harvey H., The National Park Architecture Sourcebook, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, ISBN 1-5689874-2-0

• Kennedy, Frances H., The Civil War Battlefield Guide, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990, ISBN 0-395522-8-2X

• Korn, Jerry et al, The Civil War, Pursuit to Appomattox, The Last Battles, Time-Life Books, 1987, ISBN 0-8094478-8-6

• Marvel, William, A Place Called Appomattox, UNC Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8078256-8-9

• Marvel, William, Lee's Last Retreat, UNC Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8078570-3-3

• McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1988,

• National Park Service, Appomattox Court House: Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Virginia, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 2002, ISBN 0-9126277-0-0

• Tidwell, William A., April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War, Kent State University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8733851-5-2

• Weigley, Russel F., A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865, Indiana University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-2533373-8-0