| History of Lightwood
Lightwood House was built in several different stages by the Wall family of Surry County beginning around 1760. The Walls were tobacco planters and avid supporters of the American Revolution whose forebears had originally settled in northern Surry County in the early seventeenth century. However, when land became available near the Blackwater River in southern Surry around 1700, a branch of the family moved there. In about 1760 the earliest section of the present house was built replacing an earlier structure. As the prosperity of the Walls increased the family enlarged the house, first in 1789, then in the mid-1790s, and then again in the early nineteenth century.
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| The plantation was sold by the Walls in the 1820s and, after passing through a series of owners, was purchased by the Maynard family in 1857. The Maynards were a colorful and lively family who loved children, fox hunting, and entertaining and it was from Maynard family descendants that the house was acquired by the present owner in 1977. |
| The land where the house now stands was presented in 1614 to Pocahontas and John Rolfe by Chief Powhatan as a wedding gift and is some of the earliest settled land in English North America. The stream that runs through the property was the southern boundary of this wedding gift and originally was known as Dividing Run, but by 1700 was being called Lightwood Run. "Lightwood" was the name colonists used for pine stumps preserved in low-lying wetlands. These resin-rich stumps were prized for starting fires and making torches, and colonists harvested this useful and necessary commodity from these low-lying wetlands. When purchased by the present owner, the house was in an advanced state of decay. It was carefully disassembled and moved ten miles to its new location at Lightwood where, for over three decades, it has been lovingly restored.
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