One of Virginia’s landmarks of Federal architecture, Belle Grove (near Middletown in Frederick County) was erected in 1794-97 for Maj. Isaac Hite, Jr., a Revolutionary War officer. Hite was married to Nelly Conway Madison, sister of James Madison. During the planning of the house, James Madison wrote Thomas Jefferson requesting assistance. Though Jefferson suggested refinements, the house at Belle Grove is more in the spirit of the Adam-inspired Federal architecture than Jefferson’s Classical Revivalism. This is particularly evident in the interior woodwork which has Adam-style details copied from Pain’s British Palladio (1786). Civil War activity here culminated in the battle of Cedar Creek on October 19, 1864, when Union Gen. Philip Sheridan’s counterattack effectively ended the Valley campaign in favor of the North. Belle Grove served as Union headquarters. A century later, Francis Welles Hunnewell bequeathed the Belle Grove property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park in Frederick, Shenandoah and Warren counties was established in 2002.
[NRHP Approved: 12/19/2002]

An updated NHL nomination was approved in 2024 for the Cedar Creek Battlefield and Belle Grove Plantation that broadens the definition of the district’s significance, by incorporating recent scholarship on the Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864, the Battle of Cedar Creek, and Belle Grove Plantation, while tracing the development of the cultural landscape within the context of the social, cultural, economic, and architectural history of the Shenandoah Valley.  This nearly 11,000-acre historic district, in four discontiguous sections, comprises the well-preserved Cedar Creek Battlefield, site of a major Civil War engagement that occurred on October 19, 1864. The nomination update provides more extensive documentation and context on Cedar Creek Battlefield and Belle Grove Plantation’s national significance.  The district is a significant cultural landscape containing numerous 18th- and 19th-century architectural resources, mill ruins, historic cemeteries, and important archaeological sites that collectively tell the story of the colonization and settlement of the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
[Updated NHL Approved: 9/2/2024]