National Register Listing

Brown, Thomas, House,

CR 30, Inwood, WV

The Thomas Brown House is historically significant for its associations with the Brown family, an early, 1741 pioneer family who settled in Berkeley County. It is architecturally significant for being a rare survivor of a true, one-and-a-half-story log pioneer home. It is the earliest known dwelling house in Berkeley County in good condition. However, it predates the Gerrard House Museum by only two years. It is basically unchanged except for new siding and the addition of a wing on the east side.

In 1722, according to the Buckingham Township, Pennsylvania, Poor Tax List, Thomas Brown was a bachelor and lived with Jacob Holcombe. Thomas married in 1723 and moved to present Berkeley County in 1741. The Browns were Quakers and so had to transfer their membership from the Buckingham Friends Society to the Hopewell Friends Society, here in (then) Virginia. Approval for this was given in February 1741. One of Brown's contributions to Berkeley County was in his early development of orchards and fruit tree nurseries in an area later to become known as "Apple Pie Ridge." Orchards today is one of the leading industries in the area.

Thomas Brown acquired approximately 1,200 acres on Mill Creek, and according to his will, probated in 1750, left, among other provisions, his log dwelling house and sixty acres to his wife Ruth, who was to dispose of the orchard crop and nursery trees as she saw fit, which provided for her very well. Brown had not acquired the final title to the land. A survey by John Baylis was made on August 29, 1752, for 1,056 acres in the names of Samuel, Thomas, and Joseph Brown (all sons). This was granted in November. Brown also owned a separate two hundred-acre parcel which he bequeathed to his son William, who lived there. Ruth Brown with her sons Thomas and Samuel sold their final share of the estate, 628 acres, in 1753 and moved to Cane Creek, North Carolina. Joseph Brown had kept 428 acres which included the log house. He sold to Thomas Ellis in 1766. Ruth Brown became a member of the Cane Creek Quaker Meeting House in 1753 and died in 1763.

There were other prominent owners of this farm, among them Ellis Rees who lived here from 1790 to 1820, although he owned it. longer. Rees also owned the stone-built Bunker Hill Mill. He farmed this farm, the David Rees Farm (National Register 1983), and others with his brothers who had a co-op arrangement and the family became very wealthy. Ellis Rees, in later years, became a philanthropist who was very well known in the county for helping poor people through charitable gifts of money, food, and grain. His lengthy Obituary in the Martinsburg Gazette, 1845, describes him in saintly terms.

For nearly a hundred years, this small dwelling house was used as the tenant house on the 400+ acre farm and thereby escaped Victorian remuddling. Vacant for many years, it was purchased by the Butlers in 1983 who recognized its log cabin distinctions. The building had termites and several rotten logs were replaced. The novelty siding was removed and replaced with weatherboarding.
Built in 1741, the Thomas Brown House is an important example of an early (1730 - 1760) permanent settler dwelling in Berkeley County. The earliest, the Morgan Morgan Cabin, was constructed ca. 1730 but is now a reconstruction and must be termed a historical building instead of a historic one. The Thomas Brown House has survived, two hundred and forty-three years, virtually intact. The log wing may have been a later addition but is nonetheless an early attachment. The new wing, of like size to the other was necessary in order to preserve the old house. There is no basement, so the furnace, water heater, etc. are hidden in a large closet in the new wing.

None of the rooms in the old house were repartitioned so the early floor plan survives. The two large stone chimneys and four stone fireboxes are all here. This is an interesting house with chamfered ceiling joists, all exposed, some early hardware, and marvelous original doors. Handwork is obvious everywhere. Also, the house is built like a fort, of huge hewn logs, on a stream for the availability of water, and has gun ports placed high in both the north and south walls for shooting down. There were known Indian raids in the area.

The Thomas Brown House is significant for being the earliest known dwelling house in Berkeley County. It stands intact, with little alteration, and represents that era of special and brave people who risked their lives to settle and make their homes on the frontier.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1986.