The Bowles House in Glen Allen (Photo by Jay Paul)
What: A Glen Allen farmhouse
Where: 2704 Bowles Lane
Why it matters: A house has stood on this site since around 1825, and it was acknowledged as probably the largest dwelling in rural Henrico through the mid-19th century.
In that odd way that houses accrue names, clinging like barnacles attached to a boat’s keel, a Glen Allen property is commonly referred to as the Bowles House, although that prominent family did not build the place, but likely modified it.
According to Henrico County records and a Works Progress Administration history report, it seems that John Walker (1752-1826), who is described as an Englishman from Massachusetts and a Revolutionary War veteran, first built a brick house on the site around 1825. On nearby Mountain Road, Walker also built Walkerton Tavern, which still stands as part of Henrico County Recreation and Parks. The bricks for both structures were handmade in England.
Between 1788 and the end of 1818, when he was 66, Walker amassed nearly 400 acres.
After Walker’s death, the house was acquired by Col. Thomas Burton, “a man of culture and wealth,” according to the WPA description, who lived at this location until his 1861 death.
Then came Absalom Peyton Rowe (1817-1900), a Spotyslvania County preacher’s son, a one-term member of the Virginia House of Delegates and later the six-term mayor of Fredericksburg.
Sometime after the Civil War, the original brick house burned, and a frame house was constructed on the foundation. This became the home of Edgar Sheppard, he of the large and prosperous Sheppard family associated with Meadow Farm (3400 Mountain Road) and Locust Grove (3501 Gayton Hill Lane), both preserved by Henrico County. Sheppard was just 31 years old at the time of his late-1886 death. He worked at Cussons, Sheppard & Co., a prosperous printing house in Glen Allen.
Capt. John Cussons patented wall and desk versions of calendars, with rip-off pages, that also featured advertising. He oversaw the 1880s creation of Forest Lodge, a 100-room, 1,000-acre resort hotel. Forest Lodge was demolished in 1989 and is survived only by a cupola from one of its towers that today sits at 2409 Mountain Road.
Through the following years, the house belonged to several people who sold off acreage. It was lived in by James B. Winston and then Benjamin Ladd and Lydia P. Purcell — for whom Purcell Road gets its name.
The home’s namesake, young lawyer C. Champion Bowles, and his wife, Helen Humes, didn’t arrive until 1919. They would raise three daughters and a son in the home. Bowles, a graduate of the University of Richmond and T.C. Williams School of Law, was elected in 1936 as Goochland County commonwealth’s attorney, and the next year, he sold the house to Willie L. Burruss. Gov. Thomas Stanley appointed Bowles to the 9th Judicial Circuit in Sept. 1954, from which he retired in February 1966. He died in 1967.
Some dozen families moved through the 3,736-square-foot, 10-room house into the late 20th century. By then, the house resembled a backdrop for the memories and ghosts of Thornton Wilder’s play “Our Town.” In 2012, the Bank of New York Mellon Trust held the title. The current owners are Michael Mitchell and Cynthia Harris.
Thanks to Mary Ann Soldano of Henrico County Recreation and Parks for her help with research.
