THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 17, 1996 TAG: 9603130038
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K2 EDITION: FINAL
SERIES: Obscure Tour: Local Landmarks the Tour Books Never Mention
SOURCE: BY EARL SWIFT, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
WITH ALL the mock-Colonial architecture in banks, strip malls and offices around here, it can be tough to spot the buildings that really do hark back to the 18th century.
Such is the case along Princess Anne Road, just west of Witchduck Road in Virginia Beach, where a hodgepodge of gas stations, churches and fast-food joints conceals the site of a once-thriving port and a Revolutionary skirmish.
The Kellum Funeral Home, at 5184 Princess Anne, looks like a textbook example of Georgian architecture because it is. It's the former Pleasant Hall, a plantation built in the 1770s and once the largest home in Kemp's Landing, a settlement that sprang up at the headwaters of the Elizabeth River's Eastern Branch.
Its grounds were the scene of Virginia's first Revolutionary War battle, a 1775 firefight between British regulars and local militiamen. It was to be the war's sole victory for redcoat Lord Dunmore, whose men killed several rebels, chased two to their deaths in the nearby river, and captured 19 others. Bullets, cannonballs and other leftovers from the battle are on display inside.
Kemp's Landing takes its name from a port on the Elizabeth - wide, deep and lined with wharves and warehouses - where a steady procession of large, ocean-going sailing ships loaded tobacco.
The little bridge just west of Pleasant Hall carries Princess Anne over the remains of that port. Hard to believe the narrow, shallow rivulet of muddy water ever accommodated more than a canoe, but so it did. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by RICHARD L. DUNSTON, The Virginian-Pilot
This 1770s house is now a Virginia Beach funeral home.
by CNB