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BELLEVUE HE Bellevue estate in Halifax County, about five miles southeast of the Courthouse, originally contained something more than one thousand acres. It was purchased about 1825 by John B. Carrington, a great-grandson of George Carrington who came to this country from the Island of Barbadoes. He was also a grandson of Judge Paul Carrington of Mulberry Hill, member of the House of Burgesses, and the Committee of Safety. Judge Carrington was later a member of the Virginia Convention of 1776 which adopted the State Constitution and the Bill of Rights and directed the Virginia members of Congress to move for independence from Great Britain. In 1788 he became Judge of the Virginia Court of Appeals. The dwelling at Bellevue, which was built by a former owner, is a commodious one of brick, fifty-six feet long and forty feet deep. The rooms were about eighteen feet square and there was an upper and a lower hall sixteen feet wide running through the house from front to back. The interior division walls were of brick. Lhe front porch was an impressive one, two stories high with double columns extending to the roof on each side of the entrance steps. On the second floor was a balcony. There were two back porches, one at the end of the hall and the other at the corner of the house. In the room entered from the latter was a large cabinet in which were kept medicines, bandages, etc., for the farm hands. The house was situated in a grove of several acres containing handsome oak, original pine, sycamore, cedar, holly, boxwood and mimosa trees. The yard was filled with shrubs and vines of various kinds. Back of the “big house" and about one hundred feet away was the kitchen with its big open fireplace. A brick walk led from it to the dwelling and, if the biscuits were not “‘piping hot’’ when [299] a = a 6 SS Be 4 op } ~ i f e
