Burton Despard House

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Burton Despard House is the oldest extant home in the Quality Hill Historic District, having been completed in 1856. Constructed for Colonel Burton Despard, a prominent lawyer and entrepreneur, the home initially provoked the moniker “Despard’s Folly,” for its location away from the center of town and proximity to an animal corral. Perhaps there was some truth to the name, as Despard was kept awake by the braying of thousands of Union mules during the Civil War. However, the Burton Despard House encouraged others to move to the area and Quality Hill quickly became one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in the area. The Despard Family lived in the house until 1919; it was later purchased by John Davis and Harry and Elizabeth Weaver.

Images

The Burton Despard House. The later two-story additions can be seen at the rear of the structure.

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

Built between 1852 and 1856, the Burton Despard House is the oldest building in the Quality Hill Historic District by almost two decades. The square two-story Italianate structure helped define the architectural style and direction of later structures in the area. The Burton Despard House has a slightly raised foundation which accentuates the height of the building in conjunction with vertically oriented windows. The five-bay facade features a simple raised porch on the first floor and a balcony bounded with wrought iron on the second. A bracketed cornice supports a relatively deep entablature. The roof of the house is gabled with a chimney at each end. While the facade has changed relatively little over the years, multiple phases of two-story additions have expanded the rear of the home significantly.

Colonel Burton Despard was a highly successful lawyer and entrepreneur in Harrison County. He was an incorporator of the Merchants Bank, organizer of the Clarksburg Gas Company, and owned several area coal mines. When Despard’s house was first being built in the middle of the nineteenth century, it drew mockery from Clarksburg’s citizens for its location so far from town. In actuality, the home was only two miles from the courthouse, but its location in an undeveloped neighborhood and adjacent to a large corral certainly encouraged the common moniker for the house, “Despard’s Folly.” It was reported by the Cincinnati Enquirer that when the Union Army picketed two to three thousand mules in the corral in 1861, Despard was kept awake by the “hideous braying.”1

Despite the initial ridicule, Despard’s influence encouraged others to begin constructing homes in the Quality Hill area in the 1870s. Certainly, the colonel’s connections to local families through marriage were highly effective in encouraging these families to establish homes in the area. Despard married Emily Smith, daughter of Abraham Smith Sr. and following her death married Gertrude Lee, daughter of Judge George H. Lee. The Smiths and Lees both became well-established in the neighborhood. The Burton Despard House remained in the Despard family until 1919. In the 1950s, John Davis and Harry Weaver purchased the building and converted it into the Davis-Weaver Funeral Home. The structure continues to serve this business today.

Sources

Chambers, S Allen. Burton Despard House, SAH Archipedia. January 1st 2012. Accessed March 31st 2021. https://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/WV-01-HR21.

Meredith, Roleta Smith. Issue 188, The W Newsletter. April 3rd 2015. Accessed March 31st 2021. https://winewsletterwv.blogspot.com/2015/04/.

1. Pederson, Ralph and Margo Stafford. Quality Hill Historic District, National Register of Historic Places. May 15th 1985. Accessed March 31st 2021. http://www.wvculture.org/shpo/nr/pdf/harrison/85001815.pdf.

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Clarksburg Visitors’ Bureau. Accessed March 31st 2021. https://www.clarksburgvisitorswv.com/historichomes.aspx.

Additional Information

Davis-Weaver Funeral Home