The Knight House

Lewis Knight built the log house preserved on this site in the mid-nineteenth century, probably around 1850, on an 83-acre agricultural parcel. He lived there with his wife, Roberta, and their nine children: Sarah, Wesley, William, Uriah, Henry, Martha, John, Lucy, and Mary. Knight appears to have been a farmer of modest means, and in 1860 he owned two horses, three milk cows, eight cattle, and 10 swine. That year his farm produced twenty-five pounds of tobacco, 250 bushels of Indian corn, typically used for livestock feed, and 100 bushels of corn, and court documents indicate that he also grew wheat. In 1885 the house was valued at $100.00, approximately $2,400.00 in modern equivalent due to inflation. After Knight's death in 1893, ownership passed to his son-in-law Jackson Musselman, a farmer who had married Lucy Knight, the youngest of the Knight children, in 1883. Jackson and Lucy had four children: Olie, John, Bell, and Rosser. The parcel was later transferred to Jay Musselman, the last of the Knight family descendants to own the property. The house is a one-and-a-half story log hall-and-parlor dwelling on an Aquia sandstone foundation, with log walls joined by dovetail corners and later covered with weatherboards. Its interior was originally whitewashed over the logs, and the sawn lath, small wire brads, and plaster were likely installed between about 1890 and 1920.

Embrey Mill, Virginia · United States