Department of Historic ResourcesAn official website of the Commonwealth of Virginia Here's how you knowAn official websiteHere's how you know
Hampstead Farm presents a unique opportunity to study nearly all periods of the human occupation of Virginia’s northern Piedmont. The district is spread across 780 acres of beautiful rolling hills and bottomland along the south side of the Rapidan River. Indian remains, representing cultures from the Paleo-Indian, Archaic, and Woodland periods are found at forty-six identified sites. Testing on three bottomland sites has revealed buried deposits of Indian material. Historic occupation is found on three additional sites. A section of road, built by Robert Beverley in the early 1730s to span his Octonia tract, is clearly visible. An 18th-century house site, the home of Benjamin Johnson, a captain in the Revolutionary army, offers further potential for archaeological information. Johnson’s daughter married James Barbour, later governor of Virginia. Three gun emplacements and a communication ditch are relics of Civil War activity.
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 stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia
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
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