The Widow of White Hall, Major Michael Wallace and the American Revolution!

In our last White Hall history post, we followed the story from William Rowley Jr. to his niece, Lettice Smith Wishart, and her husband, Reverend John Wishart.

But then, in 1774, everything changed. That year was already a turning point for Virginia. The colonies were restless. Trouble with Britain was growing. The Revolution was just over the horizon. And here at White Hall, one family story was ending while another was about to begin.

William Rowley Jr. died in the Spring of 1774. His will left portions of his estate to Lettice Wishart and Catharine Taylor. Lettice’s husband, Reverend John Wishart, was named as one of the executors of Rowley’s will. But John Wishart died shortly afterward in the Fall of that same year.

Think about that for a moment.

In the space of only a few months, Lettice lost her uncle, became part of a complicated estate inheritance, and then lost her husband. She was left a widow with three young children in colonial Virginia, connected to a large and valuable working estate at a time when the legal, financial, and social world around her was dominated by men. Believe it or not, women couldn’t even own an estate like White Hall back then. She inherited it from her uncle, but in the eyes of the law, it belonged to her husband, John Wishart.

Old records can make people seem flat and distant. A name in a will. A line in a court case. A passing reference in a family tree.

But Lettice was not just a name. She was a woman standing at the center of a very real human story.

She had three young children to raise; the oldest was buy 8 years old.
She had an estate to navigate. A future to secure.
And she was doing it all on the edge of the American Revolution.

Later accounts describe the Widow Wishart’s estate as remarkable: thousands of acres of land, a fine brick house, outbuildings and stables, carriages, riding horses, cattle, sheep, oxen, and the daily life of a large working farm.

AND THEN - into this story comes one of the most colorful figures we have found in White Hall’s past:

Major Michael Wallace.

Or, as tradition remembers him, Major Mike.

Major Michael Wallace came from the prominent Wallace family of the Fredericksburg and Stafford area. His family home was Ellerslie, near Fredericksburg, in Falmouth. Remarkably, his family was from Ayrshire Scotland, the same Scottish region that both John Wishart’s and my family were rooted.  Major Michael Wallace was remembered as a man of extraordinary size and strength - more than six and a half feet tall, broad, powerful, and almost larger than life.

Family tradition described his voice as so deep and powerful that he could stand on the porch at Ellerslie and call out to someone two miles away. When he was angry, he was said to roar like a wild bull. When he walked through the woods, his singing echoed across the countryside and was heard for miles.

That may sound like legend. And it probably is legend, at least in the way old stories grow larger with each telling.

But legends often tell us something important about how people were remembered.

And Major Mike Wallace was remembered as a man no one wanted to cross.

One famous story places him in Falmouth before Revolutionary War and before he married Letice. According to the old tale, a rough Irish sea captain had come into port and started fighting his way through the taverns. After beating several men, he could find no one else willing to face him. Shouting curses at the townsmen, he bellowed, “is there no real man in this town that can fight me?!”

Then someone thought of Big Michael Wallace – “Major Mike.”

A rider was sent to Ellerslie. Major Mike had no quarrel with the Irish man, but he was apparently not one to turn down a challenge. He saddled his horse, rode to Falmouth, and met the Irishman in the street – right in front of the row of taverns the Irishman had torn through.

The story says they agreed to fight without rules.

And when the two men squared off - with the first blow, Major Mike killed him.

That is a brutal story, and we tell it carefully. Whether every detail happened exactly as remembered, it shows how Major Mike lived in local memory: powerful, fearless, dangerous when provoked, and almost mythic in physical strength.

But the next part of the story is the one that brings him directly into White Hall’s history.

According to the same old family tradition, after that terrible fight, Major Mike was somewhat sobered and pulled back from brawling. One day, while he was resting at Ellerslie, a traveling parson stopped at the house.

The parson was on his way to visit the Widow Wishart.

He had been chosen as one of those involved in settling the late Parson Wishart’s estate, which was said to be quite valuable. He described the widow’s property: thousands of acres, a fine brick house, outbuildings, livestock, horses, and all the signs of a substantial Virginia estate.

Major Mike listened. Then he asked the parson when he was leaving. The parson said he would stay the night and ride at sunrise.

Major Mike’s answer became the stuff of Wallace family legend: “I’ll ride with you - and I’ll marry that widow.”

And according to history, that is exactly what he did.

In 1775, Michael Wallace married Lettice Smith Wishart.

With that marriage, White Hall entered a new chapter. The property that had passed from the Rowley family through Lettice now came into the Wallace family story, where it would remain for many years.

That is one of the things that makes White Hall’s history so fascinating. One moment, the story is about colonial inheritance and a widowed mother. The next, it is about a giant Revolutionary-era Wallace with a booming voice, a fearsome reputation, and enough confidence to hear about a widow’s estate and immediately declare his intentions.

You almost cannot make that up.

But behind the colorful legend is something deeper.

Lettice’s life had changed dramatically in 1774. She had gone from wife to widow, from one family chapter to another, from the Rowley-Wishart story into the Wallace story. Her marriage to Michael Wallace did more than join two people. It joined families, estates, histories, and futures.

From that union came a large branch of the Wallace family in Virginia. And White Hall became part of that legacy.

The old house and land had already seen the Rowleys, the Wisharts, ministers, farmers, widows, children, workers, and enslaved people. Now it would see the Wallaces, a family whose name would remain tied to this place and this region for generations; until 1908.

That is why we love uncovering these stories.  We have a vast amount of research on White Hall and so much information that we can’t include or fit all of it in these posts, but since this week is our 250th birthday as a Nation, I had to add these facts and stories!

Beyond the legend, of Major Mike Wallace as a fighter and a mountain of a man, Michael Wallace was also connected to the Revolutionary cause. Records remember him as “active and effective in the cause of the colonies in 1776”, and as one of the men who renounced allegiance to King George III by his signature; a guaranteed death sentence if America had lost its bid for independence in the Revolution.

This week, when we celebrate America’s 250th year, we are not only celebrating an idea written on parchment in Philadelphia. We are remembering the men and women in places like Virginia who had to decide what they believed, where their loyalty stood, and what kind of country they hoped would be born.

Michael Wallace was not the only Revolutionary figure in the family.

His older brother, Gustavus Brown Wallace, volunteered after news of Lexington and Concord reached Fredericksburg and entered the Continental Army in 1775. He became one of nine Fredericksburg-area men who served as General in the war for independence.

Michael later named his first son Gustavus Brown Wallace, honoring his brother. That son would become part of the next generation of the Wallace family story, tied to White Hall, Rokeby, and the wider history of this region.

In addition to Michael and Gustavus, the middle brother, William Wallace, also served as an officer in the Virginia Militia - making three Wallace brothers all active in the great war for independence!

That is one of the things that makes old places so powerful.

The Revolution can feel far away when we only think of famous paintings, marble monuments, and names in textbooks and the clothing they wore. But here at White Hall, the story becomes local. It becomes personal. It becomes land, family, marriage, inheritance, risk, sacrifice, and memory.

America was not built only by famous men in famous rooms.

It was built through communities.

Through farms and churches.
Through courthouses and militias.
Through families deciding whether they would remain subjects of a king or become citizens of a new nation.
Through men who fought and lived - or
Through men who fought & died for the great cause of Freedom!

Through women who endured with husbands forever changed by the war

Through women who lost husbands and raised children alone in a new nation.

Through women who assisted the cause in any way they could!

It was built by ordinary people in extraordinary time who had to make hard choices before they knew how the story would end.

The founding of America gave the world a revolutionary idea: that liberty does not come from kings, that rights are not gifts from government, and that a people can govern themselves under God.

Those ideals were not perfectly lived in 1776.

They are still not perfectly lived today.

But they were powerful enough to change the world - and powerful enough to call generation after generation of Americans to live up to them more fully. That is worth celebrating!

So this week, as fireworks explode, flags fly, families gather, and communities across the country celebrate 250 years of American independence, we are especially grateful for the small piece of that story connected to White Hall.

Bethany and I are grateful for this country. We thank the Lord we were both born here in the United States of America! We are grateful for those who risked so much to bring it into being. And we are humbled to care for a place where some of those early American stories still echo across the land we live on today!

White Hall has been many things: a colonial homeplace, a working farm, a family estate, a dairy, a gathering place, and now a winery and wedding venue. But this week, we remember something else.

White Hall is also connected to the story of American independence.

And 250 years later, that is definitely something worth raising a glass to!

Happy Independence Day, and God bless America!

J&B