Built about 1858 by Schuyler Harris on land once owned by Henry Augustine Washington, a distant relative of the first president, the Harris-Pryor House stood within a large plantation of more than 3,000 acres established through purchases, marriages, and inheritance among the Washington, Harris, and Pryor families of Virginia. Long after the demise of slavery, about 60 tenant families lived on the land. Schuyler Harris gave the house to his daughter, Ida Maria, and her husband, Wm. Richard Pryor, son of Sen. Luke Pryor II and Isabella Virginia Harris Pryor. Through this family descent, the house and farm known as Flower Hill came to be owned and held in trust for future generations by Luke Pryor IV and his wife Betty Lamb Pryor. Across the highway, a large spring long known as English's Spring produced enough water for a town, and a small settlement grew around it that contended to become the county seat but was not chosen and disappeared. For several miles around, the area was known as Quid Nunc Beat and Post Office until about 1910, when the name changed to Harris Station for a community that had formed along the railroad tracks to the southwest, but that community also later declined. The Harris Cemetery lies among the trees across the highway.