ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, June 15, 1996 TAG: 9606170047
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: FLOYD
SOURCE: TOM MOATES SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES
Floyd County soon may have the historical museum outlined as one of the top priorities in its five-year plan. In fact, it already may have it.
The Phlegar House sits nestled among a few enormous trees in a park-like spot on the nearly 200-acre parcel the county purchased recently for an industrial park. Several local groups are talking over plans to ask the county to donate the house to the Floyd County Historical Society. So far, it's all still just talk. But the interest is there.
"If it's not the oldest house in Floyd County," said Marguerite Tise, a long-standing member of the historical society, "then it's the second oldest. It represents the history of the Phlegar family - one of the first to come to Floyd."
"It is one of the most historically substantial, historically intact resources that we have in the county," said Kathleen Ingoldsby, historical society president.
The Phlegar family had a major influence in early Floyd County history, and occupied the house continually from the time the first part of the house was completed in 1816 until the last remaining Phlegar who called the house home, Sarah, passed away in 1993.
So what makes the Phlegars such a significant family in Floyd County history? The family is so tied to the early growth of Floyd that the very land the courthouse and town of Floyd sit on today was donated by Abraham Phlegar for those purposes in 1831. He was the brother of George Phlegar, who operated a grist mill on Old Field Creek, behind the current site of the Pine Tavern. George Phlegar built the Phlegar House on present-day Virginia 615.
George Phlegar's youngest son, Benjamin, married twice and fathered 19 children in the home. One of his sons, William, followed his father's lead, married, raised his family in the home and lived out his life there. Finally, in the latter half of this century, William's three children - Sidney, John and Sarah - occupied the house until their deaths. Sidney and John passed on first.
The Phlegar siblings attended Zion Lutheran Church, which was begun when George Phlegar donated the land together with George Sowers and gathered charter members to formally organize the church's congregation in 1813. The church stands nearly in sight of the Phlegar House, another example of the influence of the family.
The main part of the house - a log structure with amazingly wide horizontal board siding and a massive dry-laid stone chimney on one side - is in particularly good shape. The house has 12 rooms, some with the slanting floors of an old farmhouse, steps with treads worn from generations of scooting feet, and original doors sporting iron-strap hinges. Now, even with empty rooms, the house seems to reverberate with the voices of children. Until Sarah's death, the story goes, the house wasn't vacant for a single night.
Intellectually and economically the Phlegar House makes sense for the county historical museum, Mike Johnson said recently at a meeting of Neighbor for Neighbor, a local community group. Johnson owns Wintergreen Farms, a private museum and living history festival site near Floyd. There would be very little cost to the county to turn the property over to the historical society, and there is definitely a groundswell of opinion to make it a county museum rather than lose it, Johnson said.
Meredith McGrath, another Neighbor for Neighbor member, said the construction of the Phlegar House is unique, which adds to its historical significance.
Donating historical properties for county museums has become a regular practice in the New River Valley. The Newbern, Giles County and Montgomery County museums all were donated to provide proper care and display for historically relevant artifacts, Ingoldsby said. The Floyd County collection currently is in the cramped quarters of the Old Church Gallery and donations of local artifacts no longer can be accepted by the historical society because of the lack of space.
Recently a newsletter from the Old Church Gallery circulated around the county explaining that it has joined with the historical society in a common effort to create and house the Floyd County History Museum, a 20-year goal of the society.
If the county were to donate the property as the Floyd County History Museum could the development of the surrounding industrial park encroach on the Phlegar House site, making it inappropriate for a museum? Roy Crawford, Floyd's new county administrator, thinks not. "I have seen development take historical properties successfully into their midst," he said recently. "I think the industrial park could accommodate the museum and also protect the wetlands in the same general area. It seems this hand-in-hand development of historical preservation, economic development and environmental protection could meet many of the county's needs on this county property."
LENGTH: Medium: 89 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: GENE DALTON/Staff. The Phlegar House sits in a park-likeby CNBspot on a nearly 200-acre parcel the county purchased for an
industrial park. color.