Some Places (Buckingham County side of the James)

Selma, former residence of H.D. [Harry] Bruns II, was built by Capt. Joseph K. and  Ida Turner Irving in the 1880's. Irving earned his title as a teenage captain of a canal boat and also had a store at Howardsville. Selma burned in 2000.

The Irvings added a ballroom to Selma to provide a place for their four children to entertain. Mrs. Irving was the arbiter of taste for her part of Buckingham County, according to some memories. Her consultant in this undertaking was her longtime housekeeper, Mrs. Lucy Chambers Jones.

Selma had a tiny kitchen but delicious meals of Brunswick stew could emerge and be served in an elegant dining room furnished in antiques selected by Bland Cox Bruns, mother of H.D. Bruns II  Guests could also linger on the porch and watch the view while they sipped mint juleps, made Bland's way: strong.

Nearby to Selma is the house once known as Restalrig. It was built by the Scotts, named by Gen.T.M.Logan for the long-ago family home in Scotland, and once occupied by his daughter Lena Forsyth and her family, then by the John Crews family. It is now  the home of Heather Neier [Mrs. Robert Snoddy]. Flooring in the oldest part, at right, could date from 1790, builders say.

Weyanoke -- meaning village by the river--is the former home of the John Gibbs family. The Maurice Manchesters have lived and farmed there since shortly after World War 2. The Manchesters were originally from Rhode Island. New York lawyer John F. Alexander had this house built of native stone.

Below is Dungannon, built by Dr. and Mrs. H.D. Bruns as a summer home and now belonging to Mr. Allan Beattie and operated as a cattle farm.

Salem Church, near Axtell

And from the Albemarle County Side

Once the home of mail carrier Hunter and Mary Fenwick, behind the Howardsville Masonic Lodge.

The former home of  Charles Giles on the north corner of Rt. 602 and 626 in Howardsville. The house was built on the foundations of a tobacco "factory," and is high enough to have survived many floods, It was restored within the past 10 years. Photo by William Giannini.

The pre-Civil War Howardsville bank building on Rt. 602. Photo by William Giannini.

The George Lodge, AF&AM is to the left of the Howardsville Methodist Church. Photo by Orlando Ridout V, Winter of 1976.

James Washington Sr., about 1970, on the Mt. Alto Road or Rt. 735 in front of Curtis Vernon Giannini Sr.'s house, looking across the fields of the Fenwick Farm, Mt. Alto. Washington had just plowed a nearby garden and was probably returning home to the Lewiston Ford Road or T. 724, also the Limestone Road. Photo by William Fenwick Giannini.