If This Land Could Talk: The Early Story of White Hall

When you sit on the lawn at White Hall today with a glass of wine, music in the air, a wedding taking place beneath the old trees, or friends gathered around you, it is easy to think of White Hall as it is now.

A winery.
A wedding venue.
A place for music, celebration, and community.

And it is all of those things.

But White Hall was a gathering place long before our time.

Long before the tasting room, long before weddings, food trucks, music nights, and weekend guests, people were already gathering on this land. Families lived here. Neighbors visited here. Workers came and went. Children were raised here. Meals were shared here. Goodbyes were said here. Courtships, marriages, births, deaths, griefs, celebrations, and ordinary days all left their mark on this old Virginia homeplace.

That is what we mean when we say White Hall has history.

It is not just an old brick home with an old Stable and Barn built with old wood beams.

It is memory.

And that memory reaches back into the earliest generations of colonial Virginia.

The story Bethany and I have been piecing together begins with the Rowley family, whose roots in this region reach deep into the 1600s. The earliest figure in the line appears to be John Rowley, who was connected to old Stafford and Richmond Counties and the Northern Neck world of land, tobacco, family inheritance, court records, and hard frontier life.

This was a very different Virginia from the one we know today.

King George County did not even exist yet. The county would not be established until 1720. Before that, this region belonged to an older Virginia world - rural, agricultural, river-connected, and shaped by family estates, parish churches, tobacco fields, courthouse records, and the daily struggle to build a life in a difficult land.

The early Rowleys lived in that older world, before King George County had its modern name and boundaries. Land was being patented, bought, sold, divided, inherited, and worked. Tobacco was often treated almost like currency. Wills and deeds mattered deeply. Family lines shaped the future. And life could be fragile. (Note: Modern King George was formed by land from two counties: Land that was originally part of either Richmond or Stafford Counties).

One of the most sobering moments in the early Rowley story came in 1704, when John Rowley Jr., his wife Catherine, and several members of their household were killed in a violent attack. * The wording in historic court documents is graphic and tied to the times and era in which they lived, but the tragedy itself remains part of the early story of this region.

It is a reminder that early colonial Virginia was not romantic or easy. It was beautiful country, yes, but it was also uncertain, dangerous, and often harsh.

From that early Rowley line came William Rowley Sr., who continued building the family’s presence and property in the region. Like many landholding families of early Virginia, the Rowley’s story was carried forward through land, family, work, inheritance, and the written records that still survive today.

Eventually, Rowley Sr.’s land passed forward to his son, William Rowley Jr., born in 1711. He is the figure who brings the White Hall story into much sharper focus. He was a Colonel in the Colonial Virginia Army and fought in the French and Indian War.

By the time William Rowley Jr. appears in the records connected to this property, the Rowley family had already been part of this region for generations. That matters. It means that before we ever get to the Revolutionary era, before we get to Lettice Wishart, before we get to the Wallace family, and long before White Hall became known as a farm, dairy, winery, or wedding venue, this land was already part of a family story stretching back across colonial Virginia.

William Rowley Jr. was not simply a landowner whose name appears in old estate papers. He also lived through the great imperial conflict that helped shape the next generation of Virginia leaders: the French and Indian War.

During the French and Indian War, William Rowley Jr. served as a captain connected with King George County militia duty. One colonial record lists payment to him, “Captain William Rowley,” for his pay, the pay of guards, and subsistence while conducting drafted soldiers to Winchester. That detail places Rowley in the same frontier military world where a young George Washington was commanding the Virginia Regiment and overseeing Virginia’s defenses from Winchester. We cannot yet say the two men personally met, but Rowley’s service clearly connects White Hall’s early story to the wider military crisis that helped shape colonial Virginia before the Revolution.  George Washington was a hands-on leader who knew his men. Since the Virginia Militia only numbered ~1000 troops, it is probable that a Captain in the same regiment who served in the same location as Washington would have interacted and known each other.

We do not want to overstate what the records prove. But we can say that Rowley was stationed at the same Virginia Fort and part of the frontier crisis that shaped Washington’s early career. As a King George County captain responsible for moving drafted men to Winchester, Rowley was participating in the defense system of colonial Virginia at a moment when the colony was under real pressure. **

That matters because it helps us see him more clearly.

William Rowley Jr. was not just passing land through a family line. He was living in a Virginia shaped by war, frontier danger, militia duty, parish life, family alliances, inheritance, and the growing tensions that would soon lead to Revolution.

A father left land to a son.
That son added to it, worked it, and passed it forward.
And eventually, it came into the hands of William Rowley Jr.

In 1774, William Rowley Jr. made his will. That date alone makes you stop and think.

The colonies were already restless. Virginia was uneasy. The relationship with Great Britain was cracking. Within a year, shots would be fired at Lexington and Concord. Within two years, the Declaration of Independence would be signed.

And here at White Hall, an old Virginia estate was passing from one generation to the next at the very edge of Revolution.

William Rowley Jr.’s will referred to “the house and plantation where I now live. The land was much larger then than what we have now.  White Hall (in Rowley Jr’s will) contained 6000 acres and was a sprawling property that ran from Passapatanzy - east to where Rokeby is located on King’s Hwy. Incidentally a later occupant of White Hall would give his son a portion of his land and the son would build Rokeby. Another story.

Just pause there for a moment.

By 1774, this property was already an established homeplace. It was not just open land. It was a working plantation, a family seat, and a place with a house, fields, labor, livestock, daily routines, family ties, and a story already generations old.

After William Rowley Jr.’s death, the property passed through family lines to Lettice Wishart and others. Lettice was connected to the Smith and Rowley family lines, and her husband, Reverend John Wishart, was a Scottish-born minister connected with the Church of England. He served in colonial Virginia, including Brunswick and Overwharton parishes in King George County. A later edition of this history post will highlight my family connection to John Wishart all the way into the 1500s in Scotland!

So the early story of White Hall is not just about land.

It is about family.
Inheritance.
Faith.
Farming.
Loss.
Survival.
And the long memory of a place.

It is easy to read old names in old records and forget that these were real people.

They stood under the same sky.
They walked this same soil.
They worried about crops, weather, family, money, illness, faith, politics, and the future.
They heard news of unrest with Britain.

Signed the Stamp Act
They watched Virginia change around them.

And somehow, through all of that, this place endured.

That is one of the things Bethany and I love most about White Hall. The history here is layered. It is not just one story from one century. It is many stories stacked on top of each other.

There is the colonial story.
The Revolutionary-era story.
The family story.
The farming story.
The dairy story.
The wedding story.
And now, the winery story.

Each generation added something.

The old brick house, the barns, the ancient trees, the fields, and the quiet corners of the property all remind us that White Hall has had a very long life. This land has seen Virginia under the Crown, Virginia in Revolution, Virginia as part of a new nation, Virginia through war and recovery, Virginia during the Civil War, Virginia as farmland, and Virginia as home.

By the twentieth century, White Hall was remembered by many as White Hall Farm or Whitehall Farm. That later farming and dairy chapter matters because it shows that White Hall did not simply sit still as an old estate.

It kept working.
It kept feeding people.
It kept gathering families, workers, neighbors, and visitors.
It remained useful, loved, remembered, and lived in.

That may be the best phrase for White Hall. “Lived in”

Not preserved behind glass.
Not frozen in time.
Not just admired from a distance.

Lived in.

And now, in our own small way, Bethany and I are part of that long line of caretakers. We do not see ourselves as the owners of White Hall in some shallow, modern sense. We see ourselves as stewards. We get to care for this place for a little while, learn its stories, preserve what we can, and share it with others.

That is why this history series matters to us.

Because the next time you come to White Hall, we want you to see more than a beautiful property. We want you to feel the depth of the place. We want you to look at the old house, the tasting room, the Dairy Barn, the trees, the fields, and the lawn and think:

People have been gathering here for a very long time.

And the story is still being written.

If your family has a memory, photograph, document, keepsake, or story connected to White Hall, we would love to hear it. These stories are part of the life of this place, and we would be honored to help preserve them.

J&B