Green Springs Historic District
18th and 19th century farmsteads adjoining Rt 15

Historic Site

Contact site for information

Things to do and see
Guided tours are available for individuals and groups. For information, you may contact Historic Green Springs, Inc. at (540) 967-0096. This area is well known for bird watching.

Tours, Guided

Tours, Self-Guided

Walking Trails

Watchable Wildlife

Location
Route 15
Green Springs, VA
Rte. 15, 1.5 miles north of I-64 from exit 136 in Zion Crossroads
Road map and directions

Contact information
(540) 999-3402

On the Web
http://www.louisacounty...

http://www.nps.gov/grsp...

Landscape surrounding Bracketts, located within the Green Springs Historic District

From the earliest days of settlement in the Piedmont, the Green Springs area has been known for its exceptional fertility, prosperity, and beauty.

Contrasted with the surrounding hilly land with its thin soil and scrub woodlands, this 14,000-acre bowl, a geological formation that defines Green Springs, is composed of lush, rolling pastures.

In the 1720s a group of Quakers settled near Camp Creek, followed soon after by several Hanover County, Virginia families, who established major farms and, over succeeding generations, intermarried, adding farmhouses and manors through the mid-1860s. Altogether, more than 250 original 18th- and 19th- century homes, barns and other outbuildings survive. The area has been farmed continuously for more than 200 years and the fertility of the land has made possible its remaining unspoiled today. In the 19th century Green Springs was famous for its abundant wheat crops. In 1841 Cyrus McCormick chose to test his reapers on the wheat fields of Green Springs.

Two families in particular, the Morrises and the Watsons, built a number of plantation houses in the area. One of the earliest settlers, Richard Morris, built Green Springs in 1772 (visible from Route 617). Here Morris entertained his good friend, Patrick Henry. In the 1790s Morris developed the springs for which the district is named into a popular spa. Other notable Morris family homes include Sylvania, Grassdale (visible from Route 15), and Hawkwood–designed by well-known architect Alexander Jackson Davis for Richard Overton Morris in the 1850s. Ionia Farm on Route 640 was built by Major James Watson in the early 1770’s. It is one of the best-preserved story-and-a-half plantation houses of its type in Virginia. Also within the Green Springs Historic District is Boswell's Tavern, one of Virginia's time-honored rural taverns.

Designations
National Register of Historic Places, National Historic Landmark

Green Springs Historic District 18th and 19th century farmsteads adjoining Rt 15

Green Springs Historic District
18th and 19th century farmsteads adjoining Rt 15