Situated on five acres at the edge of the Eastville Historic District, in the town of Eastville, Northampton County, Cessford was built about 1801 and bought by Dr. John Kerr about 1832. After Kerr died in 1857, George Kerr, his son, inherited the property. In 1861, when the U.S. Army occupied the Eastern Shore, George Kerr fled the area. On July 23, 1862, Brig. Gen. Henry H. Lockwood established his headquarters at Cessford and remained there throughout the war. The Kerrs returned in 1865. The Flemish-bond brick Federal home stands two-and-a-half stories high, with central pedimented porches on the north and south facades. The two-story brick addition to Cessford contains a sitting room and kitchen on the first floor with a narrow stairway leading to the cook’s quarters on the second floor. The kitchen retains its original large fireplace with two iron cranes and hooks. Nearby are the remains of the support complex: a smokehouse, a slave quarters/kitchen, and a utility building.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia