Weems-Botts Museum
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Contents |
[edit] The Weems-Botts Museum Today
Weems-Botts Museum is a small, professionally directed museum that features the history of Virginia's oldest chartered town (Dumfries, VA) and two of the more colorful personalities to have lived there: the Reverend Mason Locke Weems and attorney, Benjamin Botts. [1]
In terms of arcitecture, the part of the building built initially shows an example of a true one-and-a-half story building. The museum was restored by Historic Dumfries, Inc. in 1975 as part of a bicentennial U.S. restoration project. A gazebo was also built during the bicentennial to commemorate William Grayson, one of Prince William's most respected citizens. [2]
If you would like to visit the Museum yourself, the address is:
300 Duke Street
Dumfries, VA 22026
(Located just off Jefferson Davis Highway, aka Route One, which runs parallel with Interstate-95.)
[edit] Historical Significance
Who were Mason Locke Weems and Benjamin Gaines Botts?
Weems, a native Marylander, was a clergyman who decided to become an author and book store owner. Why he started his business in Dumfries is unknown. Here, at this house, Weems wrote an 80-page booklet that would influence the thoughts of Americans to this day: he documented the life of George Washington, and was the creator of the famous cherry tree myth. He also created the myth that Washington threw a silver dollar more than 300 feet across the Rappahannock River. He also wrote biographies on Benjamin Franklin, Francis Marion, and William Penn. [3] Weems sold his shop in 1802 to an attorney named Benjamin Botts.
Benjamin Botts used the building as his law office. Best remembered as one of the lead lawyers who successfully defended Aaron Burr during his infamous treason and conspiracy trial, Botts was a Dumfries native and rising star in Virginia's legal community. Unfortunately, Botts was killed in the tragic event of the Richmond theater fire on December 2, 1811. [3]
[edit] Haunting Trivia
According to L.B. Taylor, Jr.'s The Ghosts of Virginia; Volume VII, this museum is haunted. From the time of Botts' death (1811) until 1869, the usage of the home remains unknown. Around 1869, Richard Merchant, his wife Annie, and his daughters Violet and Mamie moved into the house. Mamie suffered from epileptic seizures and was kept in an upstairs room in confinement until she passed away only a few months after Richard himself. Soon after this, Annie asked her daughter Violet, who had moved away and fallen in love, to come home and take care of her. Violet obliged and apparently lived a lonely and sad life with her mother until Annie died at 98 years of age in 1954. Violet spent the rest of her days in solitude and died only thirteen years later in 1967. In 1974, when major reparations were being made to the house/future museum, the strange occurrences began. Taylor provides several examples including an instance where books began to fly off shelves by invisible forces, an instance of a Boy Scout troop leader having a vision of Mamie asking for her rocking chair (which she sat in quite often when she was alive), and the fact that a closet in the upstairs bedroom opens by itself everyday. For more stories and to find out how you can take the tour, click here: [1][4]
[edit] References
- ^ Historic Dumfries Virginia, Inc
- ^ Prince William County Historical Commission. Wieder, Laurie C.: Editor. Prince William: A Past to Preserve. Prince William County Historical Commission: Publisher. 1998. Ref. p. 31.
- ^ Taylor, L.B. Jr. The Ghosts of Virginia, Volume VII.Progress Printing, Co, Inc., USA. 2002.
- ^ "Virginia's haunted past." Brown, Emily. 30 Oct 2005. Potomac News. <www.potomacnews.com>. <http://www.potomacnews.com/scripts/isapi_srun.dll/servlet/Satellite?pagename=WPN%2FMGArticle%2FWPN_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1128767809776&path=!lifestyle!features
