{"nrhp_refnum":"91001597","name":"Black Walnut","other_names":["DHR File No. 41-06"],"category":"building","location":{"address":"VA 600, 850 ft. S of jct. with VA 778","address_restricted":false,"city":"Clover","county":"Halifax County","state":"VA","lat":36.86315126650004,"lon":-78.72233669540825,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1991-10-29","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Agriculture","Architecture"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Black Walnut is a Southside Virginia plantation complex near Clover in Halifax County, with a main house built in at least three stages from about 1774-1790 through the 1840s, plus a schoolhouse, kitchen, slave cabin, farm outbuildings, a cemetery and gardens.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the property is an unusually complete and well-preserved large farm spanning the late eighteenth to early twentieth century. It was one of the largest and most prosperous farms in Halifax County in the nineteenth century, with a very large tobacco crop. It also illustrates the full range of plantation buildings and has architectural value.","narrative":"Black Walnut is a Halifax County, Virginia, plantation near Clover that preserves buildings from the late eighteenth century to the early twentieth. The frame main house grew in stages: a small single-pile house built between about 1774 and 1790, a raised central section in the early nineteenth century, and a two-story front addition probably built in 1848 that gave the house an H shape. Around it are a brick kitchen, dairy, smokehouses, a schoolhouse, a privy, barns and a farmyard. One slave cabin survives, the last of almost thirty once on the property. A family cemetery, boxwood garden and terraced vegetable gardens remain. John Sims built the estate into 2,491 acres, and by 1852 his land holdings were exceeded in the county only by those of one other owner. The 1850 census recorded 60,000 pounds of tobacco alongside grain and livestock. The Sims family and their descendants have held the property, and the Battle of Staunton River Bridge in 1864 took place on its land.","period_of_significance":"ca. 1774-1928","architect_builder":"unknown","architectural_style":"Colonial: Georgian; Mid-19th Century: Greek Revival","criteria":["A","C"],"status_note":"Still a family-owned farm; the house is described as having retained its character and integrity, with few alterations since the 1840s.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:00.602632-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/54/6810/41681054/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/91001597.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91001597/62f157701c-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/91001597/62f157701c-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","author":"BlackWalnutPlantation","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Walnut_Manor_House.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">BlackWalnutPlantation</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Black_Walnut_Manor_House.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41681054","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Walnut_(Clover,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712032"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/halifax-county/black-walnut-91001597/"}