{"nrhp_refnum":"75002029","name":"Weems-Botts House","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"SW corner of Duke and Cameron Sts.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Dumfries","county":"Prince William County","state":"VA","lat":38.56843760300006,"lon":-77.32916865299995,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1975-05-12","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Literature","Law","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"A small wood-frame building at the southwest corner of Duke and Cameron Streets in Dumfries, Prince William County, Virginia, built in four sections. The earliest part dates to the late eighteenth century (c. 1798), with later additions through the twentieth century.","why_significant":"The building is tied to two prominent early Virginians: Mason Locke (Parson) Weems, the bookseller and author of a popular Washington biography, and lawyer Benjamin Botts, who helped defend Aaron Burr. It is one of the few early structures surviving in the Potomac port town of Dumfries. Its earliest section is a fine example of a small late-eighteenth-century commercial building and an unusual true story-and-a-half type for Virginia.","narrative":"Perched on a hill above Main Street in Dumfries, Virginia, this small frame house grew in four stages between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Its oldest part is a brick-nogged, story-and-a-half room on a slate foundation, a type unusual in Virginia. Mason Locke Weems, a bookseller, bought the lot in 1798 and probably built this section as a bookshop and temporary lodging. Much of his short biography of George Washington was likely written here. In 1802 the property passed to Benjamin Botts, a criminal lawyer on the team defending Aaron Burr, who used it as a law office. Botts and his wife died in the 1811 Richmond theater fire, and his sons later repurchased the property. A larger mid-nineteenth-century section was added, followed by a kitchen ell, a west wing and a porch in the twentieth century. The Merchant family owned it from 1869 to 1968. The Town of Dumfries acquired it in 1974, and it is being restored as a museum.","period_of_significance":"18th and 19th centuries (boxes checked for 18th and 19th Century)","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":"Vernacular","criteria":[],"status_note":"Owned by the Town of Dumfries since 1974 and leased to a preservation group undergoing restoration as a museum; condition listed as good, with preservation work in progress.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:56.625317-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/29/6827/41682729/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/75002029.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75002029/ad8869ea02-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/75002029/ad8869ea02-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Leonard J. DeFrancisci","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weems-Botts_House_(Dumfries,_Virginia)_001.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Leonard J. DeFrancisci</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Weems-Botts_House_(Dumfries,_Virginia)_001.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41682729","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weems%E2%80%93Botts_Museum","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7979567"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/prince-william-county/weems-botts-house-75002029/"}