Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1916-05-17
LEFT OF
OLD APPOMATT0X

- OLDIERS of 1866 who revisit
- the town Of Appomattox find
- that the half-century which has
done so much for their country
has done nothing for the hamlet made
famous by the great event of Lees
surrender.
Indeed, the place has gone back
ward in fifty years. It's houses have
fallen into decay or have disappeared,
and it's fields have grown up to pine.
The village of Appomattox Court
house was never considerable set
Element. Like many another county
seat in the South, it had it's origin in
a courthouse, a jail, a tavern, a house
or two and blacksmith shop-a GEN.
ter to which the inhabitants of rural
district could come at intervals to
transact legal business.
A visitor to Appomattox Courthouse
today-or "old AppomattoX.' as it is
now called in that observation-disclosures
be disappointed, unless he has the
faculty of visualizing the momentous
events that took place there. and near
there, in April, 1865.
The court building had then stood
there half a century. About 1890 it
was burned. Today the square in which
the old courthouse stood is covered
with the debris of the fire, but out of
the Wreckage trees have grown up
as companions to those that shaded
the old courthouse before the fire.
The village that clustered around
the courthouse has nearly disappeared.
Four old frame structures have sur
vived fire, storm and neglect, but these
are sagging and out of joint and seem
soon to pass away. One or two of
these houses are tenantless. The tav-
ern, once the Appomattox hotel, is the
home of farmer and the overseer
of about 1900 acres of adjacent land
now owned by Col George A. Armes, a
retired officer of the United States
army, who lives in Washington. An
other house is occupied by a small
farmer who has not dwelt long in that
part Of the state
The Surrender house, the Mclean
! house, in which General Grant and
his staff met Lee and his military Sec
rotary, is not there. 1t was a broad
fronted brick house with a covered
porch across the front, with the en-
trance in the middle and a hallway
through the center.
The house was torn down in 1892.
| 1t was proposed to reconstruct it at
the Worlds Fair in Chicago, but after
the demolition of the house the plan
was carried no further, presumably
for lack Of funds. The piles Of brick
and lumber that had been the house
are rotting in the garden. There has
been some talk of patriotic society
building the house on it's old site.
An interesting personal story goes
with the history Of the Surrender
house. It was the home Of William
Mclean, who had moved to Appomat-
tox from the vicinity of Bull Run, to
avoid the scenes Of war that destroyed
the peace and safety of his family in
1861.
Mclean was farmer, then living in
a frame house near Manassas on the
road leading to Blackburns Ford, on
Bull Run. July IS the first fighting
between the troops of Gen. Irwin Nc
Dowell and Gen. G. T. Beauregard took
place at that ford, and General Beaure.
gard took up his headquarters in the
Mclean house. A shell from a Union
battery struck the house.
After the battle of Bull Run, July 81
1851, Mclean and his family moved to
upper FauQuier county. He next moved
10 Lunenburg county. War followed
him. Then. declaring that he would
take his family SO far from the fighting
grounds that war would not further
trouble them, he rented a house in the
hamlet of Appomattox. Fate made this
house the Surrender house.
The Mclean house near Manassas
long ago was a ruin, but another house
near it, which Beauregard also used
as headquarters, is often enormously
pointed out as the Mclean house.
McLean's SOM. Wilmer Mclean
, is business man in Manassas-a ham
let that since the war has grown into
a thriving town.
,, The table in the Mclean house al
AppomattoX on which the articles o.
surrender were written is in the Ma
tional museum at Washington. The
flag of truce under which the negotia
lions between Grant and Lee were con
Quoted is also there, having beer
loaned to that institution by the wild
, ow Of George A. Custer.
Colonel Whitaker of Grants staff
4 who carried the flag, lives in Wash
e ington and is expected to take part il
= the celebration at Appomattox.
Maj. George C. Rounds of Manassas
a civil war veteran, resident sine
: the war at Manassas, who promotes
5 the Blue and Gray reunion on the fielt