Matthew Jones House
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Matthew Jones House | |
 The Matthew Jones House in 2014 | |
   | |
| Location | Taylor Ave. and Harrison Rd., Fort Eustis, Newport News, Virginia |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 37°9′37″N 76°36′11″W / 37.16028°N 76.60306°W |
| Area | 0 acres (0 ha) |
| Built | 1727 |
| NRHP reference No. | 69000342[1] |
| VLR No. | 121-0006 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | June 11, 1969 |
| Designated VLR | November 5, 1968[2] |
The Matthew Jones House is a historic plantation house located on Fort Eustis in Newport News, Virginia. The house sits on a hill toward the northern end of Mulberry Island, overlooking the James River. It was built ca. 1725 as a one-and-a-half-story frame dwelling with brick chimneys and later underwent two major renovations. During the first renovation, in 1730, the walls were bricked in and a shed room and porch tower were added. During the second, in 1893, the house was raised to a full two stories. In 1918 the house and its surrounding land were acquired by the U.S. government for the establishment of an army post. By the late twentieth century, the Matthew Jones House had fallen into grave disrepair. In 1993 it was preserved and rehabilitated by the National Park Service in cooperation with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Today it serves as an architectural museum.
At times in the past the Matthew Jones House was also known as the "Brick House" for its construction, and the nearby creek, now known as Milstead Creek, was once called Brick House Creek. It is frequently stated in popular histories of the area and on the Matthew Jones House roadside historical marker that the plantation was once known as "Bourbon".
The Matthew Jones House, named after its original owner, was built around 1725 as a 1+1⁄2-story frame house with brick chimneys. The house in its earliest form was earthfast – rather than the house standing on a foundation, its main structural posts extended into the ground. The original form of the house was a two-room hall and parlor style dwelling,[3] with the hall serving as a multipurpose living and working room and the parlor, or chamber, used for sleeping and private dining.
An exterior brick kitchen was built in 1727.[4]
Period II (1730)
Matthew Jones died in 1728 and left his house to his son Scervant, who was a minor at the time. Scervant's guardian, John Jones, embarked on improvements to the house which had probably been planned by Matthew before his death. The exterior walls of the house were rebuilt in brick,[4] though several beams from the earlier framing were retained as part of the roof framing and have survived to this day.[5] The house also acquired a cellar at this time and was no longer earthfast, but rather had a brick foundation. The foundation was laid in English bond, while brickwork in the rest of the house was laid using Flemish bond. Several decorative elements are present in the brickwork: the headers of the bricks are glazed, and rubbed bricks were used around the windows and at the corners of the building.
Two additions were made to the house at this time: a shed room at the back of the building and a two-story porch tower at the front.[4] The shed room provided additional sleeping or storage space, while the new tower entry provided a measure of control over who had access to the interior, private spaces of the house. In the second quarter of the eighteenth century, central passages were becoming commonly used for this purpose.[6] The Joneses likely built the porch tower, a more old-fashioned architectural feature, rather than a central passage because there was not enough space within the existing plan of the house to insert a passage without making the size of the rooms to either side inconveniently small.[7]
Dendrochronological testing of several of the timbers from this period of renovation revealed that the trees used were felled in 1729 and were used soon after they were cut down, probably in 1730.[8][9]
