The Chinn House

by

Gracious Living

It was once a gathering place for generations of families, local citizens and curious tourists visiting the Northern Neck and surrounding areas. Now, with help from a small endowment and Virginia State funds for historical restoration, the Chinn House is being returned to its former glory and once again will welcome the community in through its doors.

Passing through Warsaw, the Chinn House is hard to miss. The beautiful, white, federal-style antebellum home is located directly at the entrance to Rappahannock Community College and is in the heart of the town’s business and shopping district. While the Chinn House’s educational importance is expansive, its many rooms and pristine grounds, dotted with trees, hedges and small statuary, were also once home to one of the region’s founding families, and its historic tapestry is both rich and diverse.

In 1899, Sarah Fairfax Douglas, whose family owned the land on which the Chinn House now sits, married Joseph William Chinn, Jr., a distant relative of George Washington on his father’s side. Chinn was born at Brockenbrough House in Tappahannock and raised at historic “Wilna” in Richmond County. Together, the two had four children while they lived in the Douglas house — Elizabeth Landon, Joseph William, Sarah Fairfax and Austin Brockenbrough — and as the family grew, so did the need for a larger home. In 1908, Chinn was gifted land by his in-laws on the same property as the Douglas House, and he commissioned a new home to be built by James Eppie Newman – grandfather of more recent local entrepreneurs Rudolph Lowery of the old Lowery’s restaurant in Warsaw, Norris Lowery of Montross, and Wesley Lowery of Lowery’s restaurant in Tappahannock.

The stately home, now known as the Chinn House of Warsaw, boasts six bedrooms upstairs, including Mama’s and Papa’s room, the company room, Betty’s room, the nursery, Aunt Mary’s room, and the boy’s room, as they came to be called by the family. On the first floor, were the library room, parlor, sitting room, dining room, kitchen, and pantry. Connecting the floors is a beautiful, custom staircase made of quartered oak and shipped by steamboat from Baltimore, as were much of the home’s building materials, including the Rift Pine wood floors and concave, leaded glass windows in the front door, the door between the pantry and parlor, and the custom-curved windows of the sitting room, which allow for plentiful sunshine to stream into the home. Electricity was installed in the house in 1930. Up until then, the home was lit by unique acetylene gas wall sconces, and water was pumped in from a windmill on the property. Fireplaces, of which there were six, were used to heat the home along with wood-burning stoves.

After the family moved in, the Chinns had another child, Mary Douglas, and the home was complete. The house was filled with the laughter of children and a constant hum of conversation from visitors, many of whom came to speak with Chinn, whose importance both locally and throughout the commonwealth was on a distinct rise.

In his early years, Chinn attended Colonel Council’s School in King & Queen, going on to teach for several years in Louisiana and South Carolina. He decided, however, to leave teaching to study law. He graduated from University of Virginia Law School and then passed the bar in 1890. His grandfather and great-grandfather had both served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, and his paternal grandfather was twice elected to the U.S. Congress. This may have inspired his own career, as Chinn was elected as Richmond County Commonwealth’s Attorney, for which he served steadfastly for 24 years. In 1915, Chinn resigned as Commonwealth’s Attorney to accept the position as Judge of the Twelfth Judicial Circuit of Virginia, and in 1925, a year after it was formed, Chinn was appointed to the Virginia State Special Court of Appeals, where he served until it was dissolved three years later. In 1931, Virginia Governor John Garner Pollard appointed Judge Chinn to the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals and in 1934, he was elected by the Virginia General Assembly for a 12-year term; however, he died in office.

Chinn also served for a time as Commissioner of Game and Inland Fisheries and as Richmond County School Superintendent. He was on the vestry of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Warsaw and on the Board of Directors for both the first bank in Warsaw, the Mumford Bank, and the Northern Neck Telephone and Telegraph Company. Additionally, he was the first president and director of the Northern Neck State Bank in Warsaw and served on the Board of Directors at University of Virginia.

Chinn often used the Library Room for his work, later building a separate office building on his land, which, through acquisitions from the family, totaled over 140 acres of property. With such a busy family and social life, numerous outbuildings were added to the land in addition to Chinn’s office, including a smokehouse, garden house, garage and stable, cow barn, corn silo, and numerous other buildings that aided in running the estate, including a schoolhouse, where the Chinn children — along with a few other students from local families — were tutored. A large herd of sheep was also farmed at the front of the property, where passersby often would watch the beautiful flock, tended by family employee Walter Richardson. Richardson, and his wife, Sarah Evans, lived with their family in a home on the property, assisting the Chinns with the farming of the corn, wheat, tomatoes, and crimson clover fields, as well as with chores in the Chinn House.

After the death of Mrs. Chinn in 1932, and Judge Chinn, in 1936, the house was closed off, untouched but completely furnished, with Richardson as its caretaker. In the fall of 1938, Chinn’s daughter Sarah “Sally” Fairfax reopened the home with her husband, Howard Reisinger. In 1940, the couple moved to Belle Mount, in Richmond County, and the Chinn’s youngest daughter, Mary Douglas, her husband, Bonney Morris, and their infant daughter, also Mary Douglas, moved into the house. The Morris’ second daughter, Elizabeth Landon, was born in the home, and in 1954, the family converted the residence into a tourist home, which they named “Walnut Lodge” after a centuries-old black walnut tree, which still stands to this date, at the entrance to the property.

Today, the Morris’ daughter Mary Douglas still fondly remembers not only growing up in the beautiful home, but also the amazing memories she has of the people and family members who stayed there throughout the years. “We had the most wonderful Christmases, my mother, father, sister and me,” Mary Douglas shared, adding that Richardson would go and cut down a tree, and her parents would put it up on Christmas Eve after she and her sister went to bed.

“My grandmother would entertain a lot, and she had the most unique push-button installed in the floor of the dining room, where she’d just push it with her foot and a bell would ring in the kitchen, then the next course would be served. It was amazing how effortless it all seemed as a child.” Mary Douglas said that the men in the community would come together weekly to play instruments like the fiddle, banjo and guitar while relaxing in the Sitting Room. The doors would also be open during the holidays for the community to come and enjoy the festivities put on by the family.

Another fond remembrance, which many locals might still recall, was of the old beech tree on the west side of the yard, where couples would come to carve their initials and symbols of their young love, eventually covering the tree completely. Unfortunately, the tree was destroyed by a hurricane, but its legacy lives on in the many whose youthful pledges remain steadfast to this day.

There are even a small few in the community who still recall hearing the dulcet contralto tones of Mrs. Chinn, also known as Sally, coming through the open front doors of the home as she would sing her favorite songs and hymns with family and friends. When the home operated as a lodge, Mary Douglas said that the laughter and joy abounded, as famous businessmen and world-renowned travelers rubbed elbows with local linesmen and workers from the old Levi Strauss plant, creating an environment filled with happiness and newfound friendships.

Mary Douglas’ two children, John Paul Welch II and Sarah Fairfax Welch Hughes, were the last generation of Chinn’s descendants to have lived in the house as children. When the Morris sisters left to start homes of their own, the families, including all of the remaining descendants of Judge Chinn, were left with the fate of the house’s future in their hands. In 1969, looking to honor Judge Chinn and his wife’s legacy, they made the gracious and generous decision to donate the Chinn House, and all of its property, to the State of Virginia for purposes of education.

Thus, Rappahannock Community College’s (RCC) Warsaw campus was born. The college’s first classes were held in the same rooms in which lodgers once stayed, and in 1973, the first campus building was completed, opening for students from around the region and commonwealth. For many years, The Chinn House, still owned by the state, has been used by the college as offices, meeting areas for the community, and as a home base for the Rappahannock Community College Educational Foundation, a non-profit organization that has utilized the upstairs of the home as its hub for fundraising. According to Sarah Pope, the foundation’s director and also the college’s Dean of Advancement, she and RCC’s President, Dr. Elizabeth Crowther, have worked hard to get The Chinn House upgraded through state funding. After more than a decade of their joint efforts, the historic building has finally been approved for a renovation that will, according to Pope, not only maintain the historical fabric and integrity of the building, but also bring it into the future with elevated energy efficiency. Plans include new shutters, paint, repairs to doors, windows and the entryway, as well as uncovering and restoring original wood elements of the house that have been painted over. There will also be new period-correct light fixtures and modernized bathrooms.

The renovations are expected to begin this winter, and last throughout early 2019. Once complete, Pope said that the historic jewel will once again be a place the public can utilize, with the Chinn House being available not only for educational purposes, but also for the community to use as a gathering house for cultural meetings, receptions, and get-togethers.

For Mary Douglas, the news brings welcome joy to the family, who has long held the Chinn House in their hearts. “This is just delightful! The fact that my uncles gave the home for educational purposes and that my family home is being restored and opened for the community,” Mary Douglas said. “It is going to be just wonderful to have the warmth of my childhood welcome the families of today.”

The House and Home Magazine will follow closely the renovations and plans to keep our readers abreast of the remodeling efforts once completed. Our deepest thanks are extended to those who helped in this article’s historical research, including Mary Douglas.