Accomac Historic District

Accomac Historic District
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Virginia Landmarks Register
Accomack County Courthouse (Built 1899), November 2006
Location	Business Rte. 13, Accomac, Virginia
Coordinates	37°43′11″N 75°40′11″W
Area	130 acres (53 ha)
Built	1690 (1690)
Architectural style	Greek Revival, Federal, Vernacular
NRHP reference No.	82004529
VLR No.	160-0020
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	July 21, 1982
Designated VLR	December 16, 1980

Accomac Historic District is a national historic district located at Accomac, Accomack County, Virginia. The district encompasses 158 contributing buildings in the town of Accomac, mainly grouped into two periods of construction. From its founding in 1786 through the second quarter of the nineteenth century, several residential, commercial, governmental, and religious structures were built in the core of Accomac, representing both high-style and vernacular examples of late Georgian, Federal, and Greek Revival styles. Notable structures surviving from this period include the rectory of St. George's Episcopal Parish (1798, 1811); the Seymour House (1791-1815); Roseland (1750-1850); Seven Gables (1786-1905); Rural Hill (1816, 1835), and the Francis Makemie Presbyterian Church (1840). The second period of construction reflected in the town dates to the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when the arrival of the New York, Philadelphia, and Norfolk Railroad spawned renewed growth and economic prosperity in Accomack County following the Civil War. These buildings also display both high-style and vernacular expressions of Victorian Era styles, including Second Empire, Italianate, Gothic Revival, and Romanesque. Notable structures from this time period include Bayly Memorial Hall (a former Baptist Church built in 1870 and later moved), the County Clerk's Office (1887), the Accomack County Courthouse (1899), and houses found in the Lilliston Avenue extension of the town built in the 1880s-1890s. There are also contributing structures dating from the first quarter of the twentieth century, including the Drummondtown Baptist Church (1914), Drummondtown United Methodist Church (1920), and the former hotel at the town square (1925).

There are three structures within the Accomac Historic District which are listed separately on the National Register of Historic Places. They are the Debtors' Prison, the Bank Building, and St. James Episcopal Church.

The Accomac Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

History

The Virginia General Assembly in its October 1786 session enacted "that ten acres of land, the property of Richard Drummond, adjoining to Accomack courthouse...are hereby established a town, by the name of Drummond." The act establishing Drummondtown came over a century after the court of Accomack County has begun meeting at the site, first in the home or tavern of John Cole and then in a brick courthouse completed in 1756.