The Baxter House

The Baxter House is seen these days as a fine example of an eighteenth century Valley log house. Until recently it was sheathed in board, and so it's been well preserved. This is a two-story log structure on a limestone foundation. The logs are notched and dovetailed in the old manner. They were fit so well that no chinking was required. Tradition has it that the local German craftsmen had to be involved in order to produce this sort of quality. Though the house dates to an early period (before 1800), a more recent addition seems to have been spliced into the south facade.

The house has been known as the Baxter House, though there are some questions about the legitimacy of the claims for this Scottish family, not the least of which is that the level of craftsmanship in the construction of this house is more suggestive to some of German craftsmen. There were Baxter families in the census for the area in 1784 an 1810, though in neither lists do the names appear expected neighbors for this community. In accounts of the family, it's said that the son in the house, George Junior, served as President of Washington College, now Washington and Lee, from 1799 to 1829. Though there was a George Baxter in the 1784 census with a family of 8, the only Baxters found in subsequence censuses are named John or Joseph. Some believe that the Baxters resided elsewhere in Rockingham and didn't come into the possession of the house until 1860.

This land fits the description of two deeds. It seems to have been on the property originally of Thomas Bryan St, and may have been a Bryan starter-home. Thomas and his son Peter sold half of their Linville lands to Gasper Moyer. The adjoining neighbors in the description of this deed match perfectly those described in the deed several years later to Christian Eyman and his wife Susan. They ultimately sold the land which the had acquired to Jacob Lincoln, the grand-uncle of the president, and the adjacent landowner on the north side of the property.

The house was added to the national registry of historical places in 1973.