THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 6, 1995 TAG: 9508060033
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHARLES CITY, VA. LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
As owner Malcolm Jamieson tells it, Berkeley Plantation has so much history, ``you almost feel like you're making it up.''
Jamieson has spent 68 years restoring Berkeley Plantation to its rightful stature as the birthplace of a U.S. president and key plotting site during the Revolutionary and Civil wars.
This is the place where President William Henry Harrison wrote his inaugural address and where the country's first 10 U.S. presidents were entertained.
``None of the other places can compete on the history in the whole United States, I don't guess,'' Jamieson said.
The grounds of Berkeley Plantation were settled by the British in 1619. The first bourbon whiskey was distilled here in 1621.
Benjamin Harrison IV spent five years building the three-story Georgian mansion on the property nearly 250 years ago.
It was known as ``Harrison's Landing'' for more than a century beginning in 1726, and each of the country's first 10 presidents was entertained here.
Benjamin Harrison V, born in the house, was governor of Virginia three times and signed the Declaration of Independence. His son, William Henry, was a hero of the War of 1812, and in 1840 became the ninth president.
William Henry Harrison wrote his inaugural address in the room where he was born. A month later, he was buried there after he died of pneumonia. His grandson, another Benjamin Harrison, in 1889 became the nation's 23rd president.
``He came here once to visit his relatives,'' Jamieson said, ``and they didn't have the time of day for him because he was a Republican. So he told them, `the Harrisons are like potatoes - the best of 'em are underground.' ''
The Harrisons lost Berkeley before the Civil War because of financial problems. During the war, it served as a headquarters of Union Gen. George McClellan and as a hospital that in one day took in 1,800 wounded from the Seven Days battles at Malvern Hill.
According to one account, Jamieson said, ``the battlefields were awful, noisy and awful, but nothing was as bad as the inside of that house.
``They would give the soldiers a lead bullet to bite on while they were cutting off their arms or legs, and because of all the screaming and hollering, the most horrible place anyone could go was that house.''
Jamieson's father, Scottish immigrant and engineer John Jamieson, bought Berkeley at a bank auction in New York City in 1907. John Jamieson had been to Berkeley when he was 12 as a drummer in McClellan's Army of the Potomac.
Malcolm Jamieson, now 86, was the only one of 13 heirs interested in trying to make something of the plantation.
``No one had made it work,'' he said. ``But to me, the possibilities just seemed endless.''
When Jamieson inherited the brick mansion in 1927, it was painted barnyard red, infested with rats and other vermin, and it reeked of the manure piled knee-deep in the basement.
``Horrible-looking,'' Jamieson said. ``It took six of us all winter scrubbing to get that paint off.''
Schooled in animal husbandry and agriculture at Rutgers University in New Jersey, Jamieson arrived on the property in 1929, moved into the bachelor's quarters, and got to work restoring the land and the mansion.
In 1933, he married Grace Eggelston and put her in charge of restoring, refurbishing and redecorating the house.
``While I was planting trees, she arranged for all the furniture and placing it and picked colors for the rooms,'' Jamieson said. ``The inside of the house is her project more than mine.''
Interior ornate moldings remain from a 1790 renovation by the Harrisons, he said. Jamieson said he financed furnishing the mansion by selling cattle, other livestock, ``anything else we had to raise some money.''
The Jamiesons moved into the house in 1938, lived on the second floor and opened the ground floor and basement to tourists.
Jamieson estimates 100,000 people visit each year, including Boy Scouts who camp near a reproduction fish house built on the James River.
Bald eagles nest in the woods and feed off frogs and fish in the 10 ponds Jamieson put in for irrigation. He plans for the ponds to one day support a catfish farm.
Jamieson grows corn, soybeans and winter wheat on 600 acres and harvests timber off 400 wooded acres.
The grounds also have a nursery run by his son, a small amphitheater and even an airplane landing strip.
For himself, Jamieson has a gazebo for relaxing in the afternoon.
``When I get old enough to retire, I'm going to put a hammock out here, I think,'' he said. ``But I'm not old enough to retire yet.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Malcolm Jamieson, owner of the Berkley Plantation, talks of the
history of the plantation, located in Charles City. The plantation's
house, which is the birthplace of President Benjamin Harrison, will
be 250 years old next year.
by CNB