Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 08/21/1991
NRHP Listing Date 11/08/1991
NRHP Reference Number 91001598
This dignified example of a Federal-period gentry farmhouse was built ca. 1819 for Elisha Betts, a native of Northumberland County, who migrated to the Roanoke Valley about 1807. Huntingdon originally was the nucleus of a 500-acre working plantation and took some twenty-five years to complete. Following Betts’s death in 1825, his widow Sara Watson Betts, continued to reside here, adding handsome Greek Revival porches. The dormers, front entry, and one-story rear wing are early-20th-century additions. Huntingdon retains some of its original Federal interior woodwork. Remaining on the eight-acre tract (now within the boundaries of the city of Roanoke) is the Betts family cemetery and a small, one-story frame outbuilding that may have been a slave quarters. Now surrounded by 20th-century development, the complex is a historic anchor in a growing modern city.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: March 17, 2022
