1913-1915 Clements Country Store Ledger [AND] 1996 Lee Hall Area Plan
Author: [H. M. Clements & Co.] [Lee Hall, Virginia] [Business Ledger]
Title: 1913-1915 Clements Country Store Ledger [AND] 1996 Lee Hall Area Plan
Publication: Lee Hall, Virginia: H. M. Clements & Co., 1913-15; 1926
Description: Ledger. Heavy folio business ledger. [1], 800 numbered pages, [1]. Brown suede leather covered boards with raised bands and partial leather labels on the spine. Binding is in poor condition. Back cover is extremely dry and blackened (possibly left on a heated surface). The front board and spine is in better condition but is dry, scuffed, rubbed, etc. Interior contents are mostly clean. Pages 775-800 have insect damage. There is some loss of account information mainly in the mid sections of the last dozen or so pages. Some scattered ink? stains on the foredge. Ledger dates from May 15th, 1913 to July 22nd, 1915. All pages are used for accounts with no torn out pages or blank pages inside. Accounts list the names of the customers, products, and prices. Included with the ledger is a government planning and development plan titled: "Draft The Lee Hall Area Plan Newport News Department of Planning and Development October 1996". This plan has 79 pages of text and 18 folding, colored plans for proposed development. Also included is a receipt from H. M. Clements and Co. dated April 23rd 1913. Included with the ledger and area plan is a 1926 manuscript record of Hay Bales. Fair.
From the National Park Service:
Lee Hall is the only large pre-Civil War plantation house on the lower Virginia Peninsula. It was built ca. 1850 for Richard Decatur Lee and his wife, Martha. Lee was a wealthy tobacco planter. He was also placed in charge of the area's defenses during the Civil War. Confederate Major General John Bankhead Magruder made Lee Hall his headquarters from April to May 1861 during the Warwick-Yorktown phase of the Peninsula Campaign. From Lee Hall, Magruder and General Joseph E. Johnston directed the defense of the lower Virginia peninsula against Union troops under Major General George B. McClellan. During the Confederate retreat on May 3, 1862, there was a small confrontation with Union forces. The plantation yard included the remnants of a fort from which a Confederate hot-air balloon was launched on April 17, 1862.
Lee's support of the Confederate cause brought him financial ruin, and he was forced to see Lee Hall in 1866. A village was established at the nearby rail crossing in the 1880s and took its name from the house. In the following century the property was bought and sold many times, until the 1996 purchase of the site by the City Of Newport News. The house was restored to its antebellum appearance and is now a museum interpreting the 1862 Peninsula Campaign and the ways that the Civil War changed the fabric of American society.
Lee Hall was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 5, 1972 and the Virginia Landmarks Register on August 15, 1972. It is located at 163 Yorktown Road, Newport News, VA 23603.
From Historical Marker Database site : As passenger and freight activity became significant, the village of Lee Hall developed around the depot. Numerous places of business sprang up to support the activity generated by the depot including a schoolhouse, Dozier's dairy, H.M. Clements' store, Emma Curtis' cafe, and S.R. Curtis' grocery, post office and hotelry. H.M. Clements' store provided residents with a meat shop, grocery, dry goods and other materials, as well as a home to salesmen renting upstairs apartments. Buildings erected on either side—a bar, bowling alley and barber shop—supported his business and added entertainment. Emma Curtis' cafe and tavern next door fed residents and travelers.
Seller ID: 29528
Subject: American South, Americana, Business
