Free Republic

The Zachariah Johnston House, also known as (of course) The Stone House, is located near Lexington in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Built in 1797 by John Spear for Zachariah Johnston, the house is made of irregularly-sized quarried limestone blocks. The date of construction and the names of the builder and owner are etched into a chimney stone.

Belle Grove is a fine old limestone manor house which comes with a good bit of history. The house was built near Middleton in Frederick County, Virginia, by Isaac Hite, Jr., a grandson of the pioneer Pennsylvania German settler Jost Hite. Its elegant design warranted mention in A History of the Valley of Virginia, by Samuel Kercheval, Charles James Faulkner, and John Jeremiah Jacob (1833). . . [vintage pictures]

When the Pennsylvania Germans crosses the Potomac into the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, they brought with them the skills and tools for erecting stone buildings. In the Cumberland Valley of Pennsylvania and Maryland, they had built numerous limestone-block houses, barns, and outbuildings. The Shenandoah Valley offered the same building materials. Jefferson County, now in West Virginia, has a collection of fine old stone houses built of limestone blocks. [Old pictures]

One of the more durable contributions of the German settlers of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley are the stone houses, barns, and other buildings which they construction during Colonial times. Typically made of cut limestone blocks, these sturdy buildings sometimes were designed to serve as 'forts' during Indian attacks. Thus in many Shenandoah Valley communities there is, or at least was, an 'Old Stone Fort' which had been built by Pennsylvania Germans.