Батыс Вирджиниядағы тарихи Слоан-Паркер үйі

Historic house in West Virginia, United States

The original fieldstone section of the house was erected in about 1790 for Richard Sloan and his wife Charlotte VanHorn Sloan. Originally from Ireland, Sloan arrived in the United States after the American Revolutionary War and became an indentured servant of David VanHorn. Sloan eloped with VanHorn's daughter Charlotte and they settled in the Mill Creek valley, where they built the original stone portion of the house. The Sloans had ten children, including John and Thomas Sloan, who each (later) represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates. Richard Sloan and his family operated a successful weaving business from the stone house and their Sloan counterpanes (woven coverlets with block designs) became well known in the South Branch Valley region. The Sloan family sold the stone house and to three brothers in the Parker family in 1854. The Parker family operated a stagecoach line on the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike; the journey included a stop at the stone house, where the family served meals to travelers. During the American Civil War, the stone house was visited by both Union and Confederate forces, and was ransacked by Union troops for goods and supplies. The stone house served as a local polling station, and its use as a stagecoach stop ended after the completion of the Hampshire Southern Railroad in 1910. The Parker family opened the house for tours, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. The Sloan–Parker House consists of the original stone section, which faces toward the Northwestern Turnpike, and a wooden frame addition (built c.1900) adjacent to the original stone section. The stone section's exterior wall is about thick at the basement level and tapers to a thickness of about at the attic level. Most of the stone section's flooring, and the hardware on the doors, are original. Other features of the Sloan–Parker House property include a large barn (built in 1803) and, to the northeast of the house, the Sloan–Ludwick Cemetery.

The Sloan–Parker House and farm are situated within a rural, agricultural section of the Mill Creek valley in southwestern Hampshire County. Patterson Creek Mountain, a forested anticlinal mountain ridge, rises to the west of the Mill Creek valley, and the forested western rolling foothills of the anticlinal Mill Creek Mountain rise to the valley's east. The South Branch Potomac River is located across Mill Creek Mountain, approximately 4.4 mile (7 km) to the east of the house. The house and its adjacent farm are located along the Northwestern Turnpike (concurrently US 50 and WV 28) about 0.75 mile (1 km) east of the unincorporated community of Junction (also known as Moorefield Junction). Junction is centered around and named for the intersection of Purgitsville Pike (concurrently US 220 and WV28) with the Northwestern Turnpike (concurrently US50 and US220 westward to Knobly Mountain and concurrently US50 and WV28 eastward to Romney).

The Mill Creek valley and the land on which the Sloan–Parker House is located were originally part of the Northern Neck Proprietary, a grant of land that the exiled Charles II awarded to seven of his supporters in 1649 during the English Interregnum. With the Restoration in 1660, CharlesII finally ascended to the English throne. He renewed the Northern Neck Proprietary grant in 1662, revised it in 1669, and again renewed the original grant favoring original grantees Thomas Colepeper, 2nd Baron Colepeper, and Henry Bennet, 1st Earl of Arlington, in 1672. In 1681 Bennet sold his share to Lord Colepeper, who received a new charter for the entire land grant from James II in 1688. Following the deaths of Lord Colepeper, his wife Margaret, and his daughter Katherine, the Northern Neck Proprietary passed to Katherine's son Thomas Fairfax, 6th Lord Fairfax of Cameron, in 1719. As conflicts with Native Americans began to ease, Lord Fairfax sought to entice European settlers to inhabit the sparsely populated western lands of his Northern Neck Proprietary. The Mill Creek valley was one of the first areas of present day Hampshire County to be settled by Europeans, beginning in the mid 18th century. Early settlers were drawn by the valley's fertility. Job Parker, a direct ancestor of the Parker family that later acquired the Sloan–Parker House, settled in the Mill Creek valley during this period.

The original fieldstone section of the Sloan–Parker House was erected around 1790 for Richard Sloan and his wife Charlotte VanHorn Sloan. Richard Sloan was originally from County Monaghan, Ulster, Ireland. where they stayed briefly. After observing healthy cattle from Old Fields in Hardy County, they decided to relocate there. He also served as a county justice from 1824 until 1828, a county surveyor in 1827, a county sheriff in 1839, and a member of the Virginia House of Delegates representing Hampshire County from 1825 to 1827. Thomas Sloan represented Hampshire County in the Virginia House of Delegates from 1832 to 1834 and again from 1835 to 1837.

The Sloan family sold the stone house and of surrounding land to brothers John Peyton Parker, Benjamin Parker, and William Parker on December 29, 1854, for $4,000. From the early 19thcentury until the completion of the Hampshire Southern Railroad to Petersburg in 1910, this stretch of the Northwestern Turnpike between Romney and Junction was part of a major north–south transportation route connecting Cumberland and Romney with Moorefield and Petersburg to the south. By 1845 the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike stage line connected the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) Main Line at Green Spring with the north–south route in Springfield, allowing stagecoach transportation between Green Spring and Moorefield. The route of present day WV28 aligns with this north–south route from the Maryland state line at Wiley Ford to Petersburg, and is concurrent with the Northwestern Turnpike (US50) from Romney to Junction and US220 from Junction to Petersburg. The Parker family operated their own stagecoach line along the Moorefield and North Branch Turnpike between the B&O Main Line at Green Spring and Moorefield until 1884, when the B&O South Branch Line was completed to Romney Depot. The Parkers' stagecoach line transported passengers down present day Green Spring Road (CR1), Cumberland Road (WV28), and the Northwestern Turnpike (US50/WV28) to the stone house, where the stagecoaches would stop to allow passengers to have meals before continuing the journey to Moorefield via present day US220/WV28. Union Army troops ransacked and frequently visited the house to retrieve goods and supplies from the house and farm as they traveled along the Northwestern Turnpike. By 1962 John Henry Parker Jr., the son of John Henry Sr. and Kate Parker, was residing at the Sloan–Parker House with his wife Ruth Harmison Parker and their son David Renick Parker. While under their ownership and through their efforts, the Sloan–Parker House and an adjacent were added to the National Register of Historic Places on June 5, 1975. It became Hampshire County's first property to be listed on the register. She and her husband opened the Sloan–Parker House for tours in 1962, John Henry Parker Jr. died in 2000, and his wife Ruth died in 2005.

The Sloan–Parker House, as of 2018, consists of the original stone section (built c. 1790), which faces toward the Northwestern Turnpike, and a wooden frame addition (built c.1900) positioned adjacent to the original stone section. Together, the stone section and the frame addition form a T shaped structure. The original stone section of the house, built of fieldstone, has remained mostly unchanged since its initial construction; slight alterations were made to accommodate the frame addition. Similarly, the frame addition has undergone only minor modifications since its construction.

The stone section was built using locally available materials, and its size was probably considered large for its time. is approximately 415 feet (126 m) northeast of the Sloan–Parker House in a grove of trees along the edge of an agricultural field. Richard Sloan and his wife Charlotte VanHorn Sloan are interred in this cemetery. Other burials in the cemetery include Richard Sloan's son Major General John Sloan and American Revolutionary War soldier Leonard Ludwick and his wife Katherine. Benjamin Parker and some of his descendants were buried in this cemetery before they were reinterred at Indian Mound Cemetery in Romney.