Generations of Cabell family found home in 1840 estate – Lynchburg News and Advance

An old weatherboard-clad farmhouse rests on a hillside overlooking the James River in Nelson County, where it has stood since 1840.

Rock Cliff is an interesting home: short doors connect the 1840 section of the house with the new construction of 1882, and its front stoop is made of stones from an old canal lock.

Its most unique feature, however, has nothing to do with design or construction. It has to do with its inhabitants.

Rock Cliff has been continuously owned by the Cabell family and its descendants for almost 300 years.

It currently is owned by Andrew and Digna Gantt, who have been working diligently to restore and maintain the property, which now is on the National Register of Historic Landmarks.

It just feels like home, Andrew said.

Rock Cliff started as a land grant of about 6,000 acres along the James River to Dr. William Cabell in 1734. By the time John Cabell, the last of William Cabells children, died, the property had grown to 60,000 acres on both sides of the James River, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior registration form for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

Before the Cabells, the land long had been inhabited by the Monacan Indian tribe.

The multiple-branched Cabell familys three-century tenure in the area is an enduring testimony to William Cabells skill and foresight in selecting this area for permanent settlement, the historic register documentation reads.

Cabell deeded the land to his son, Col. William Cabell, who gave it to his son, Mayo Cabell. Mayo Cabell sold the property, then 640 acres, to the great-great grandson of Dr. William Cabell, Dr. William Andrew Horsley, who descended from Cabells daughter Mary Cabell Horsley.

William Andrew Horsley, Andrew Gantts great grandfather, practiced medicine from an office still standing on the property.

When the 1882 addition to the 1840 house was constructed, the two halves didnt connect, forcing residents to walk out one side and back in the other,

In Dr. Horsleys daughter Anna Maria Perkins Horsleys diary, she described her father cutting a door on the second floor from the old house into the new addition, calling it not pretty but convenient, the historic register documentation reads.

Anna Maria Horsley diary indicates her father was a general practice doctor who set bones and delivered babies. Dr. Horsleys lower income patients would pay doctors fees with goods rather than money.

Family tradition holds that during the Civil War, Union General Philip H. Sheridan and his troops arrived at the area near Rock Cliff in March of 1865 on their way to sever Confederate supply lines by destroying the Virginia Central Railroad and the James River and Kanawha Canal.

Andrew said his grandmothers diary described Sheridans troops arrival at Rock Cliffs back porch. She was about 7 years old when that happened.

They were scuffling and fighting over a glass of wine. One of them told me, Get out of the way, you damn little rebel. I had expected monsters but they were just ordinary men, Andrew quoted.

Horsleys modest income as a doctor was just enough to keep Rock Cliff in the family when many of his ancestors lost their homes, Andrew said.

After William Andrew Horsleys death in 1887, the 637-acre property was divided among his five children and then subdivided among their heirs, and so on.

It was Andrews father, Dr. William Andrew Horsley Gantt, who set out to reassemble the homestead. Dr. Gantt had a storied history of his own. He worked as Chief of the Petrograd Unit of the American Relief Administration, helping with famine relief in Russia starting in 1922.

There he met Dr. Ivan Pavlov and became interested in his conditional reflex studies using a bell and a salivating dog. He stayed until the end of the program in 1923, and then returned from 1925 to 1929 to continue work with Pavlov. He later established a Pavlovian laboratory at Johns Hopkins University.

He formed the theories of schizogenesis and autokinesis which became the foundation of our modern understanding of the link between stress and psychological suffering and physical illness, the form states.

Over the course of his career, Dr. Gantt published seven books and authored 700 articles; he was nominated but did not receive the Nobel Prize in 1970.

Andrews father is the one who first installed plumbing in the house.

He knew nothing about plumbing but he got books from Montgomery Ward, Andrew said. Montgomery Ward, in those days, this was 1940 or so, would loan out tools and instruction books if you bought the materials from them. So thats what my father did and he knew absolutely nothing about plumbing. He was a doctor and a psychiatrist but he did all this himself. He read up on it the night before and the next day he would do what he read up on.

Beginning in 1930, Andrews father started trying to buy back all the fragmented pieces of his old homestead, finishing in the 1970s. The current Rock Cliff is a 692-acre property.

I remember when he finally bought the last piece from a cousin who had 1/84th of the farm, Andrew said. She did not want to sell it. ... I remember the day she finally did. He had great big hands, my father, and he was sitting there rubbing them together.

Andrews father died in 1980.

At one point in its history, the Rock Cliff house was leaning perilously, about to collapse under the forces of time. But Andrews father saved it.

My father rescued it and then we did more rescuing, Andrew said. We will do what we can to maintain it and if we cant, we wont. But we will still keep it. Whether my children will have that attitude, who knows?

The tan weatherboard-clad house stands among ancient oak trees. The original house features three banks of windows and a screened-in, columned front porch. The later addition sticks out on the left hand side, with its tin-clad roof sitting a little lower than the original.

A 1965 addition gave the back of the house a two-story porch. A bay window was added in 2000 and the house was extended out the back to accommodate a kitchen renovation.

In 2009, one chimney on the 1882 addition was removed and rebuilt and a carport added.

Much of the houses historic character has been maintained, and subsequent renovations have been respectful to the houses original look.

The windows are framed by the louvered shutters and some original windows remain, which the couple clad with plexiglass to cut down on drafts without altering its historic look.

The floors still are the original heart pine, and each room has 10-foot ceilings with dimensions Andrew calls just about perfect. The original construction consists of four large rooms, with four more added in the newer construction.

The staircase in the oldest portion of the house is open, featuring square newel posts and balusters but curves gracefully at the top.

I used to slide down the banister all the time, Andrew said with a chuckle.

The fireplaces feature a simple carved wood mantle with a triangular center panel and wood mantel shelves.

The upstairs rooms in the original house both were bedrooms and one has doors cut small enough that an average-sized adult must duck to get through to allow access to the newer addition.

A back staircase between the kitchen and den leads to the second floor in the 1882 side, which contains a modern bathroom and a small office where one can see the original weatherboarding on the 1840 construction preserved.

The older part of the house, Andrew said, has some ghosts. He recalled once seeing three female forms float across the original parlor, and Digna noted other guests have refused to stay there.

The house is decorated with all kinds of art, from impressionistic paintings to hand-drawn maps and even a bust of Andrews father.

The plaster has been reworked to eliminate the cracking common in a home that is more than a century old.

Digna said the man who repaired the walls told the couple if any of Andrews ancestors were to return, they would feel right at home, since all the alterations kept with the original character of the house.

My goal during the remodeling is if you didnt know it before, you wouldve never realized anything had been changed, Andrew said.

The estate now is about 673 aces of timber with 19 acres of open land. Several creeks cut through the property, the largest of which is Haw Creek that passes through the canal towpath before emptying into the James River.

As a kid, I loved it down there, Andrew said. I would wander around all over the place and nobody restricted me. Id get lost in the woods. My father told me if you ever get lost in the woods, just follow the creeks and youll get back home.

Behind the house sits a circa-1854 smokehouse, a circa-1825 office, circa 1854-summer kitchen, the circa-1860 cemetery and a circa-2008 garage.

The property was entered into the historic register in 2015 and the community itself now is part of the Norwood-Wingina Rural Historic District, encompassing a number of historic homes and buildings.

Andrew once wanted to farm the land but after running the numbers, he learned it wouldnt be profitable. Instead some 450,000 trees have been planted there, making it a modest timber farm with just enough income to maintain the property.

It was a terrible eye-opener, Andrew said. A small dairy farm is all it could support so I changed professions and went into economics [at Cornell] got a Ph.D. in economics but I have always loved the place so now I can do it as a hobby rather than as a living.

While Rock Cliff endured over the centuries, the modern world at times has threatened its character most recently when a natural gas pipeline was proposed that would cut through the property.

Now the land has a measure of protection being on both the state and national historic registers.

It has remained a beloved homestead for the Cabell-Horsley-Gantt family through the generations. Andrew and Digna hope it will remain in the hands of Cabell descendants.

I trust our children will do what is right for them, Andrew said. If I had the money, I would put the whole thing in a historic trust but I dont have the money and I dont wish to control what my children do.

PHOTOS: Generations of Cabell family found home in 1840 estate

Rock Cliff is an interesting home: short doors connect the 1840 section of the house with the new construction of 1882, and its front stoop is made of stones from an old canal lock.

Its most unique feature, however, has nothing to do with design or construction. It has to do with its inhabitants.

A living room at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A bust of Andrew Gantt's father at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A living room at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A dining room at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

The original exterior of the house is seen at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A nook at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

Stairs at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A bedroom at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A bedroom at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt. The upstairs rooms in the original house both were bedrooms.

The original exterior of the house is seen behind a book shelf at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A map at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

Andrew and Digna Gantt at their home in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A graveyard at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A gravestone at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

A graveyard at the home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

The home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

The home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

The home of Andrew and Digna Gantt in Nelson on November 14, 2019.

Sidener is the special publications editor for The News & Advance. Reach her at (434) 385-5539.

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Generations of Cabell family found home in 1840 estate - Lynchburg News and Advance