Early in the afternoon of April 25, 1865, six horsemen from Lt. Edward P. Doherty's 25-man detail of the 16th New York Cavalry and detective Everton J. Conger of the National Detective Bureau in Washington, D.C., arrived at Belle Grove and searched the house and outbuildings for President Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, who had fled into Virginia. Earlier that morning, at 6 A.M., Doherty had split off Conger's party to scour the country near the Rappahannock River, while he and the rest of his men rode inland to King George Court House and then to Port Conway, reaching Belle Grove around 2 P.M. While Conger and the rest of the detachment rested there, Doherty and detective Luther B. Baker questioned the local ferry owner and confirmed they were on Booth's trail. On April 24, Booth and his accomplice David E. Herold had been carried in a wagon to Port Conway from a cabin a few miles southwest of present-day Dahlgren, then persuaded three former Confederate soldiers to help them cross the Rappahannock and find lodging. After landing at Port Royal, they briefly stopped at the Randolph Peyton house and then went on to Garrett's Farm. After learning they had narrowly missed Booth, Doherty's full detail crossed the river on April 25 and caught up with Booth and Herold on April 26 at Garrett's Farm, where Booth was killed. Belle Grove's center section was built for John Hipkins about 1791 in the Federal style. In 1839, Carolinus Turner bought the property, remodeled the house in the Classical Revival style, and added the porticoes and terminal wings. By 1861, he owned property worth $272,500, including 92 enslaved people.