Two miles north stand the ruins of Mount Athos, with massive sandstone walls and four chimneys overlooking a bend of the James River. The house was built about 1800 for William J. Lewis on land patented in 1742 by John Bolling and called Buffalo Lick Plantation. Lewis bought the land from Bolling's heirs in 1796, had commanded riflemen at Yorktown in 1781, served in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1810 to 1811 and from 1814 to 1817, and served in the U.S. Congress from 1817 to 1819. Mount Athos stood one story high on a raised basement, with a portico on the north front and two octagonal projections on the south. It burned in 1876.