Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 09/09/1969
NRHP Listing Date 10/15/1966
NHL Listing Date 07/19/1964
DHR's Virginia Board of Historic Resources easement
NRHP Reference Number 66000926
Thomas Woodrow Wilson, twenty-eighth president of the United States, was born in this Greek Revival manse in the city of Staunton in 1856. Built in 1846 to house the pastors of Staunton’s First Presbyterian Church, the manse’s second occupants were Dr. and Mrs. Joseph Ruggles Wilson, Wilson’s parents, who moved here in 1855. Although his family left the city of Staunton while he was still a baby, it was in this forthright dwelling (in the Gospel Hill Historic District) that the seeds of Wilson’s firm moral and intellectual training were planted. He carried these precepts into his adult life as a professor, president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, and finally president of the United States. Wilson conceived the League of Nations, for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919. The manse was acquired by the Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation in 1938 and was dedicated as a museum by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1941.
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: May 5, 2022
