Historic Preservation

Hello, welcome to Rippon Lodge Historical Site!  We appreciate you coming to visit us today.  A few notes as your tour begins: Please do not touch anything unless it is indicated to be okay (including walls and furniture) or attempt to open closed doors.  There is no food or drink allowed in the house.  If you need to leave the building for any reason, please let the guide know.  Restrooms are available at the back of the building.

1) Front of house 

• The house was built in 1747, perfectly located near the major water and land routes. Neabsco Creek into the Potomac and the King’s Highway (today’s US1/I95)
• 42 acres now; Richard Blackburn owned at least 11,000 acres at time of death.
• House had no columned porches, east or west wings, or dormer windows.
• It was named for Ripon, England, in the county of Yorkshire where Richard was born.
• Brief Owner history: Richard Blackburn, a carpenter from England, died in 1757. Thomas Blackburn his son inherited the house.  It was sold to the Atkinson family after Thomas’ death in 1807. The Atkinson family sold the house in 1911 to Thomas and Augustus Marron, brothers from DC. The Marrons sold in to Wade Ellis in 1924. Ellis expanded house into what it looks like today. He died in 1947; his widow sold it to Richard and Aviza Black in 1952. The Blacks’ daughter Deborah sold it to the county in 2000.

2) Side of the house (tunnel side) to the rear

• American Elm, placed there by Wade Ellis in the 1920s. Elms grow very quickly.
• Ellis’ stories:  Mr. Ellis liked to tell tales.  He said the tunnel was used by the Blackburn’s to escape Indian attacks. The Dogue people are native to this area but were long gone when the Blackburn’s arrived. It was probably used to remove dirt when digging out the basement.
• An outdoor kitchen was possibly near this site.
• Chauffer’s house: Mr. Ellis was a wealthy man who could afford to have a driver bring him down from D.C.  Mr. Hubbard owned a garage in the city and drove for the Ellises on the side. Our current bathroom building was built for his use.

3) Inside, Orientation Room

• Floorplan Map: This layout shows where you are and different sections with their ages. 
• Benjamin Latrobe Painting, center of picture wall: Mr. Latrobe came through Rippon Lodge in 1796. He painted this watercolor of the house and many wasps.  He later helped design the capitol and became a family friend.
• Other pictures show what the house looked like when Ellis bought, renovated, and changed it.
• Original outside wall of the house: The covered hole shows original oak frame of the house built by Richard Blackburn and at least four of his enslaved men.
• Archeologically items found behind the house when the waterline was dug are shown in the case.

5) Blackburn Study

• Verdigris green paint was a sign of wealth.  It was expensive to import and hard to apply.
• This room was likely used as an office, with desks for writing and accounting.
• Possibly used as a bedroom or parlor.
• Richard moved up from carpenter to judge and wealthy landowner.  

6) Entry Hall

• This room would show off the services Richard’s carpentry business could provide visitors. It would have been the first thing a guest saw when visiting up to about 1800.
• Original heart pine paneling. Cut from trees on the property. Most likely painted, probably white, might have had more green trim.
• The corner cabinet is original to the house.  As built it had no doors, to show off expensive silverware.

7) Parlor

• The largest room in the house, it was an everything room, used for dining and entertaining, potentially court when Richard or Thomas were serving as judges.
• Original floors and more original paneling.  By the fireplace is the original fireback, a large panel of iron to reflect heat into the room and protect the brick, cast at nearby Neabsco Ironworks.
• Furniture could be added or removed as needed for different events.
• As you enter from the entry hall, there was originally a matching door ahead.  Ellis made it a window.
• Above the fireplace is Thomas Blackburn, wounded Revolutionary War soldier and member of the Virginia legislature at Williamsburg.  Across from him is his wife Christian, who managed their substantial business and plantation much of the time.
• Their daughter Nancy married George Washington’s nephew Bushrod Washington and lived at Mount Vernon

8) Central passage

• Furniture here was mostly Wade and Dessie Ellis’, but several are quite old. The large floor clock is from the 1790s as is the mirror.
• The arch was originally a plain door to the master bedroom.
• The front door was moved over to center it in the room by Ellis when the other door was removed.
• In the corner you can see the original 1747 stairs outline in the boards before the next room
• On the piano are portraits of Bushrod Washington (son-in-law of Thomas and Christian), their daughter Nancy, and son Richard S. Blackburn.  On the wall is their grandson, also named Richard S. Blackburn.

9) Stair Hall

• Added about 1800 while Thomas owned the house, this room added a new staircase and hall.
• Paint in here is not based on original colors, but those typical to the early 1800s.  A brown baseboard would help hide dirt while yellow brightened the room up.
• Wade Ellis brought this furniture home from his travels abroad.  Pictures show it here in the 1920s.

10) Ellis Library

• Ellis had this room turned into a study from a bedroom, adding the window, door, and bookshelves.  He liked to watch guests approaching up the (now obscured) driveway.  
• Mr. Wade Ellis was an attorney from Kentucky who had lived and worked in Ohio for a long time.  He had made friends with another young lawyer name William H. Taft who later became President.  He came to Washington, DC to work for the Justice Department in the early 1900s then stayed.  Together with his wife Dessie, they bought Rippon Lodge as a vacation house where she could also garden.
• President Taft visited often along with many other Ellis friends for large garden parties.
• Most of the books were originally Mr. Ellis’s.  The prints show connections to Ripon, England and George Washington that he was fond of.

11) Ad. Black Exhibit

• Richard B. Black was born in North Dakota and trained as a civil engineer.  During the Great Depression he worked as a miner and surveyor.  He went to the Antarctic as a surveyor-scientist for the first time in 1933 and many times after. He worked in the Pacific islands as an engineer, then served in the US Navy from 1941 to 1946, surviving the attack on Pearl Harbor.  After the war he went back to Antarctica and worked in DC for the Navy as a civilian.
• His full name was Richard Blackburn Black.  He was a descendant of Richard and Thomas Blackburn through his mother.  That is how he bought the house from Mrs. Dessie Ellis in 1952.
• First person to catalog many of the items in the house.  Also placed it on the National Historic Register to protect it for the future.

12) Upstairs Hall

• Upstairs used to be one large room.  Ellis divided it with new walls, while the Blacks installed a bathroom.
• Panels here describe some tales Mr. Ellis would tell guests.  
• The case with sticks shows Dendrochronology, dating dead wood from reference samples, which shows us how old the house is.
• The coffee pot was dug out of the basement by Mr. Ellis’ workmen.  It dates to around the American Civil War.
• This stained-glass screen was brought from England by Mr. Ellis. He told people it was medieval but that may have been a joke, as the words on it are in modern English.
• The stand in the corner was identified by Mr. Black as a ‘wig stand’.  It is actually used to hold a wash basin and is not an original 1700s item, but a copy.

13) Bedroom

• This bedroom shows a typical girl’s bedroom of the early 1800s.  Likely multiple children would have shared a bed until they were older.
• Jane Charlotte Blackburn was a granddaughter of Thomas and Christian Blackburn. She later married John Augustus Washington.  Like her Aunt Nancy she would live at Mount Vernon with her husband.

14) Architectural Room

• Below are original hand-hewn floor beams of the 1747 house built by Richard Blackburn and his enslaved men.  Look for the wooden pegs joining them together.
• Exposed is the central chimney of the house, once bookending the house until the addition was added.  It reused bricks from before this house was built.
• Various tools on the shelf would have been used in its construction.  Planes would have been used for much of the detail work while the plumb bob would help keep the construction straight.

15) “Washington Bedroom”

• The Ellises called this the “Washington Bedroom” and claimed he slept here.  Washington did visit but this would have been a dark, stuffy attic then.  He probably stayed in a guest house that no longer stands.
• If you notice the patches of black paint, they have long been rumored to have some sort of connection to Freemasons.  There is no evidence of black floor paint for Masonic rituals or that any of the owners were Masons.  It may have been a floor preservative or have some other reason.
   

Translations have been provided by Google Translate. Please excuse any grammatical errors.