The Plunkett-Meeks Store is a structure within the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park

Appomattox Court House National Historical Park

The Appomattox Court House National Historical Park is a National Historical Park of original and reconstructed nineteenth century buildings. It was signed into law August 3, 1935. The village was made a national monument in 1940 and a national historical park in 1954...

. It was registered in the National Park Service

National Park Service

The National Park Service is the U.S. federal agency that manages all national parks, many national monuments, and other conservation and historical properties with various title designations...

's database of Official Structures on June 26, 1989.

History

The Plunkett-Meeks Store was built by John H. Plunkett

John H. Plunkett

John Hill Plunkett, born 9 Sep 1801 in Buckingham, Virginia, United States, died 18 October 1865 in Appomattox, Virginia, United States, was the son of Ambrose Plunkett, born 21 February 1782 in Buckingham County, Virginia, died 1844 in Buckingham County, Virginia, and Tabitha Hill, born 28 October...

 in 1852 and later in the early 1860s purchased by Albert Francis Meeks, the village storekeeper, postmaster, and druggest. It was the social center of village life at what was then known as Clover Hill, Virginia. It is a major part of the historical setting of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. It represents the participation of the federal government in the preservation and commemoration of historically significant events.

Meek's son, known as Lafayette, died of typhoid fever

Typhoid fever

Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...

 while serving the Confederate army. He died when only nineteen years old and is buried behind the store. The store has been used from time to time as a private residence and at one time as the Presbyterian Church parsonage.

Historical significance

The building structure is important because it embodies the distinctive characteristics of a type, period, and method of construction in the mid-nineteenth century in rural Virginia. The buildings and resources of Plunkett-Meeks Store and storage building constitute a complete landscape typical of both a county government seat in Piedmont Virginia and of a farming community in the mid-nineteenth century in rural Virginia. It has historical meaning to the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park by virtue of its association with the site of General Robert E. Lee

Robert E. Lee

Robert Edward Lee was a career military officer who is best known for having commanded the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia in the American Civil War....

's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant

Ulysses S. Grant was the 18th President of the United States as well as military commander during the Civil War and post-war Reconstruction periods. Under Grant's command, the Union Army defeated the Confederate military and ended the Confederate States of America...

. The Plunkett-Meeks Store and storehouse building was registered and documented in the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

 on June 26, 1989.

Description

The Plunkett-Meeks Store is a two story gray building with a basement and attic. It has a deep pointed rubble fieldstone raised foundation and sheathed in weatherboards with a gable wood shingle roof. The wood shingles are round-butt. The building is about twenty feet wide by thirty six feet deep. The north porch is five feet by sixteen feet. The east end of the Plunkett-Meeks Store has an eight foot by eighteen foot temple form entry porch on brick piers. The paried four-panel entry doors are flanked by 9/9 double hanging windows. The second floor has 6/9 double hanging windows.

The Plunkett-Meeks Store is enclosed at the second floor approached by a set of open riser stairs. The first floor is furnished and interpreted as a General Store and post office. The second floor is used for offices of the park. The structure was restored in 1959 and again in 1983. The structure was altered some in 1874.

Plunkett-Meeks storage building

The one story frame building was built by John Plunkett around 1850. The original orientation of the Plunkett-Meeks storage building is not known. It may have had doors facing the main village street and the Plunkett-Meeks Store and may have been located on the fence line at the southwest corner of the property.

The one story gray structure is sixteen feet wide by fourteen feet deep. It has a gable roof and deeply-pointed, rough-cut, fieldstone piers. The structure is sheathed in weatherboards of about five and a half inches. They are covered by a clipped-corner wood shingle roof. The west and south entrances have four panel doors. The north side does not have any openings. The sash windows are 6/6 double hanging.

Its present location is next to the Plunkett-Meeks Store and behind the Woodson Law office, although this probably was not its original location when built originally by John Plunkett in 1850. The building was altered in 1874. It was restored by the National Park Service in 1959 and 1983.

Footnotes

Sources

• Bradford, Ned, Battles and Leaders of the Civil War, Plume, 1989

• Catton, Bruce, A Stillness at Appomattox, Doubleday 1953, Library of Congress # 53-9982, ISBN 0-385-04451-8

• Catton, Bruce, This Halloeed Ground, Doubleday 1953, Library of Congress # 56-5960

• Chaffin, Tom , 2006. Sea of Gray: The Around-the-World Odyssey of the Confederate Raider Shenandoah, Hill and Wang/Farrar, Straus and Giroux,.

• Davis, Burke, The Civil War: Strange & Fascinating Facts, Wings Books, 1960 & 1982, ISBN 0-5173715-1-0

• Davis, Burke, To Appomattox - Nine April Days, 1865, Eastern Acorn Press, 1992, ISBN 0-9159921-7-5

• Featherston, Nathaniel Ragland, Appomattox County History and Genealogy, Genealogical Publishing Company, 1998, ISBN 0-8063476-0-0

• Gutek, Patricia, Plantations and Outdoor Museums in America's Historic South, University of South Carolina Press, 1996, ISBN 1-5700307-1-5

• Hosmer, Charles Bridgham, Preservation Comes of Age: From Williamsburg to the National Trust, 1926-1949, Preservation Press, National Trust for Historic Preservation in the United States by the University Press of Virginia, 1981

• Ivy, Emma Plunkett, Ten Thousand Plunketts, Peachtree Printing, 1974

• Kaiser, Harvey H., The National Park Architecture Sourcebook, Princeton Architectural Press, 2008, ISBN 1-5689874-2-0

• Kennedy, Frances H., The Civil War Battlefield Guide, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990, ISBN 0-395522-8-2X

• Korn, Jerry et al., The Civil War, Pursuit to Appomattox, The Last Battles, Time-Life Books, 1987, ISBN 0-8094478-8-6

• Marvel, William, A Place Called Appomattox, UNC Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8078256-8-9

• Marvel, William, Lee's Last Retreat, UNC Press, 2006, ISBN 0-8078570-3-3

• McPherson, James M., Battle Cry of Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1988,

• National Park Service, Appomattox Court House: Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, Virginia, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, 2002, ISBN 0-9126277-0-0

• Tidwell, William A., April '65: Confederate Covert Action in the American Civil War, Kent State University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-8733851-5-2

• Weigley, Russel F., A Great Civil War: A Military and Political History, 1861-1865, Indiana University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-2533373-8-0