Buckingham County Houses: William D. Jones, Part II
New Store Historic Marker. Photo by Joanne Yeck.
Need to catch up? Click here: Buckingham Houses: William D. Jones, Part I
In her 1937 survey of the William D. Jones house for the Virginia Historical Inventory, Mrs. Elizabeth McCraw included a short biography of William Dibrell Jones. It reads as follows:
William Dibrell Jones married in 1818 and it is believed that he came to this house to live about that time. Whether he built the house is not definitely known. He lived here from 1818 until his death in 1875.
He was an extensive land and slave owner. It is said that he owned 10,000 acres of land and 100 slaves. He conducted a mercantile business before he was married, at New Store, Virginia, one of the oldest settlements in Buckingham County. He dealt extensively in the fur trade in those days. He sold furs to the Astors and to the Larillards in New York. He also sent great wagons to New York with country produce for sale. He is known to have had as many as 3000 hogs at one time to sell. Merchants of this type in those days were called peddlers.
During the War Between the States this home was visited by both armies. Some plundering was done by the Union soldiers, such as pouring out molasses and ripping open the feather ticks and mixing them together in the yard.
Mrs. Jones asked the Union officer to give her a guard for protection against straggling soldiers. This was done and the guard protected her home during the closing days of the war.
This house was on a road traveled by both armies to and from Appomattox, and about two hundred yards from “Keswick”, the Jones home where General Lee staid the night before “Appomattox”.
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Learn more about the Jones store here: Buckingham County: Jones Store: Part I
Click here to learn more about Keswick: Buckingham County Houses: Keswick, Part I
slate river ramblings . . . . 
Mary Roy,
I have consulted “The Fearns of Virginia and some Allied Families” but do know own a copy.
Many thanks for posting your connection to the Fearns. I am a Fearn through my Putney/Moseley family.
Joanne
Dear Joanne,
Do you own a copy of “The Fearns of Virginia and some Allied Families” by Elizabeth Lee Fearn Cabell Ferneyhough and Elizabeth Lee Lusk? It was published in 1973 and contains a wealth of information about early Buckingham Co. residents.
On page 57, “Leeanna Lee Fearn’s younger sister Elizabeth, either accompanied John and Leeanna Fearn (my fifth great-grandparents) when they moved to Albemarle County, or came shortly thereafter. She was married in their home to Anthony Dibrell, of Huguenot descent, a resident of the part of Albemarle County that became Buckingham County.”
Kind regards,
Mary Roy Dawson Edwards