Rippon Lodge: Yorkshire to Virginia

The house on the ridge above Neabsco Creek is one of the oldest in all of Prince William County. Richard Blackburn built it in seventeen forty-seven and named it for his birthplace of Ripon, in Yorkshire, England. Blackburn built this and other houses using enslaved labor.

At its height the plantation stretched over twenty-one thousand acres. King's Highway, the main post road linking the northern and southern colonies, ran along the property, and George Washington and later entire regiments of French and American troops all passed this doorstep on their way to and from Yorktown. Prince William County eventually acquired the site, and it is open today as a historic house museum.