Parker Sydnor Historic log cabin site

The Patrick Robert "Parker" Sydnor Log Cabin sits on a historic site located in Clarksville, Virginia. The construction of the cabin indicates that it was built during the antebellum period. A 1 1/2-story log building with a gable roof, the cabin consists of one room with a loft above, and a brick and stone chimney. Also found on the northwest side of the property is a wood storage shed, a chicken house, and an outhouse, dating from around 1930.

Historical significance

Associated with slavery, the Civil War, and Reconstruction, and the Jim Crow era in Mecklenburg County, Virginia, the Sydnor log cabin was a significant "home place" for several generations of African Americans from Reconstruction to the mid-twentieth century.

Patrick Robert "Parker" Sydnor

Parker Sydnor was a stone carver who lived in the area of Cabin Point, Virginia, residing in the log cabin during the 1930s and 1940s.

He worked for more than 40 years at his craft, and many African Americans came to him to have gravestones made for their deceased loved ones. Significantly, Sydnor was both literate and an expert stone carver. He was also associated with many African-American families living in the vicinity of Cabin Point during the twentieth and twenty-first century, as well as the African-American churches and funeral parlors in the surrounding area.