page_title: Valley View (Romney, West Virginia)
section_title: Parsons family
hierarchical_section_title: Valley View (Romney, West Virginia) / History / Parsons family
caption_attribution_description: English: Wappocomo is a late 18th-century Georgian mansion overlooking the South Branch Potomac River north of Romney in the U.S. state of West Virginia. It is situated along West Virginia Route 28 and the South Branch Valley Railroad (SBVR). The train station for the Potomac Eagle Scenic Railroad heritage railroad is located on the SBVR at Wappocomo. Photographed on 14 July 2013.
context_page_description: Valley View is a mid-19th-century Greek Revival residence and farm overlooking the South Branch Potomac River northwest of Romney, West Virginia. The house is atop a promontory where Depot Valley joins the South Branch Potomac River valley.
  The Valley View property was part of the South Branch Survey of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a large tract that was inherited by Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, in 1719. It was settled by John Collins and his family in 1749, and acquired by the Parsons family before 1772. The Valley View house was built by James Parsons Jr. in 1855. After the Civil War, Parsons' widow sold the farm to Charles Harmison. His wife, Elizabeth Harmison, inspired by her childhood Virginia home, Western View, and the scenic South Branch Potomac River views, named the farm Valley View. The most recent of a series of owners, the Mayhew family, bought the property in 1979. Valley View's current proprietors, Robert and Kim Mayhew, have restored the historic residence and grounds.
  The house at Valley View is a two-story brick structure with a rectangular architectural plan.
context_section_description: The Parsons family members were among the first English settlers in the Thirteen Colonies in 1635; around 1740, they settled in Hampshire County. By 1778, Isaac Parsons (1752–1796), a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, owned 161 acres (65 ha) of Lot Number 16 and all of Lot Number 17 in the Proprietary. James Gregg Parsons, his eldest son, was born in Hampshire County in 1773. In 1795, he married Mary Catherine Casey (1773–1846), whose family owned the adjoining Lot Number 21. After their marriage, they lived in the main house at Wappocomo, which had been built by Mary Catherine's father Nicholas Casey. The couple inherited the house after Nicholas Casey's death in 1833.
  James Gregg Parsons died on January 25, 1847, leaving most of his land to his three sons: James (Big Jim) Parsons Jr. (1798–1858), David C. Parsons (1803–1860), and Isaac Parsons (1814–1862). James, his eldest son, inherited Lot Number 20 (known as the Collins Tract); his second son David inherited Lot Number 13 south of Romney (on which Hickory Grove was later located); and his youngest son Isaac inherited Lot Number 21 (which included Wappocomo). His sons also inherited the nearby "Jake Sugar Rum Tract, the McGuire Tract, and five town lots in Romney". According to historian William K. Rice, by 1846 Parsons' sons and their families were all living on the tracts they would eventually inherit. Rice determined that James Parsons Jr. moved to the Collins Tract, around 1826, and was living there when his father died.
  James Parsons Jr. was a farmer and cattleman who was born in Hampshire County. Parsons family genealogist Virginia Parsons MacCabe wrote the following description of James Parsons Jr. in her book Parsons' Family History and Record (1913): "He was square and honorable in business, and had a large circle of friends; he had the urbanity and the gentility of manner which characterizes the true gentleman". Parsons married Elizabeth Miller on January 8, 1829. The couple had eleven children, several of whom attended college.
  In 1855, Parsons began building the present-day Valley View house on the Collins Tract. Although he wrote many letters to his sister Mary Gregg Parsons Stump about farming, cattle, family, health and community events, no letters are known to remain from the time of the house's construction. The Parsons family owned several slaves who are thought to have assisted with construction.
  After living in his new house for three years, Big Jim died of tuberculosis on October 14, 1858. His widow, Elizabeth, lived in the house until after the Civil War. In 1867 or 1869, she sold the house, the Collins Tract and the remainder of Lot Number 20 to Charles Harmison (1823–1896) for $8,500, moving with her remaining children to Missouri (where she died in 1883). The cost of building the house financially strained the Parsons family; historian Catherine Snider Long suggests that Elizabeth Miller Parsons sold the house as a result of further, war-related, financial stress from which the family could not recover.
caption: Wappocomo
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