Exploring History in the Wickham House

The Wickham House was built between 1812 and 1815 in Richmond’s Court End neighborhood for John and Elizabeth Wickham and their large family. To support the family and their lifestyle, nearly two dozen enslaved men, women and children lived and worked in and around the home. John Wickham was a plantation owner, landlord and attorney in Richmond who helped successfully defend Aaron Burr in his treason trial in 1807. New England architect Alexander Parris designed the large house, adding costly decorative details like carved woodwork, wall paintings and a spiral staircase to create a grand home that served both to entertain Richmond’s high society as well as house the family.  

John Wickham may have wanted a prominent Neoclassical home to fit in with his peers like Chief Justice John Marshall,

but he also needed a sizeable home to accommodate his growing family. When they married in 1800, John Wickham brought to the marriage two young boys from his first union (his first wife, Mary Smith Fanning died in 1799), and Elizabeth gave birth to 17 children – her first at age 19 and her last at age 43.John Wickham died in 1839, and Elizabeth and some of the children remained in the house until 1853.  

 Following Elizabeth’s death, the house was sold in 1854 to John P. Ballard who modernized it – removing a significant amount of architectural material from the early 1800s – and went bankrupt soon thereafter. The Wickham House property, which made up one whole city block on Clay Street, was subdivided and sold off. In 1858, James G. Brooks purchased the home from Ballard for his family, renting it out during the Civil War. 

In 1882, a Richmond entrepreneur and art collector, Mann S. Valentine II purchased the home from the Brooks estate. Ten years later, Valentine died, leaving his collection of art and artifacts, the home and a $50,000 endowment in the care of his brother and sons to establish a museum for Richmonders. Six years later, the Valentine Museum opened to the public in the Wickham House.  

The structure, furnishings and stories told in the house have changed over time. In the late 1980s, a significant restoration peeled back layers of history to focus the home’s interpretation on its original owners, the Wickham family. Today, guided tours focus on the Wickham period of ownership during the early Federal period and include the stories of the free and enslaved inhabitants of the home.  

Sources

• Mutual Assurance Society Records, Library of Virginia.  Alexander Parris records, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA.  
• US Census Records, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850.  
• Wickham Family Papers, Virginia Museum of History & Culture.
• Estate of John Wickham to John P. Ballard, Deed of Sale, April 18, 1854.  
• Daily Dispatch, March 26, 1858, pg. 1.
• Daily Dispatch, September 19, 1882, pg. 4. 
• Codicil to the will of Mann S. Valentine II, October 17, 1892.
• “Valentine Museum Ready,” Richmond Dispatch (November 20, 1898), pg. 8.