COLONIAL
Cole Digges House
Historic Structures Report
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PHOTOGRAPHS
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Photograph 1: View northwest along Main Street, with Custom House to
left and Charles Cox and Coles Diggs houses on the right. Winter of
1863, during Union occupation but apparently before the Swan Tavern blew
up. Said to be a Mathew Brady photo. Right (southeast gable) and the
exterior chimney centered on it as well as the centered left (northwest)
chimney are visible behind the Cox House. This may be the only known
photo showing the old right chimney. The house shows a fresh coat of
white paint, or more likely, whitewash, at this time.
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Photograph 2: Cook Collection photo (from Valentine Museum, Richmond)
looking northwest along Main Street, with the river visible in the
distance. Possibly c. 1865-75 because the small frame house in right
foreground beside the Charles Cox House appears well maintained, and
this building was already deteriorating when a piece of it was shown in
a sketch of a similar view published in Frank Leslie's Illustrated
Newspaper, November 1, 1879. The photo shows the Cox and Digges
houses freshly painted. There is a glazed door in the right front corner
(southwest end of southeast wall) of the Digges House.
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Photograph 3: View northwest along Main Street with Custom House and
19th-century wooden houses on the left, Cox House with scruffy
outbuildings, Cole Digges, and Somerwell House (probably owned by
Lightfoot) to the right. Probably c. 1870-80. The old right (southeast)
chimney is missing, and its replacement is partially visible behind the
left Cox House chimney. The left (northwest) chimney has been rebuilt
with the stack behind the ridge. Brickwork appears freshly painted
white, except the chimneys. The two-story frame house visible just
beyond the Cole Digges House in this photo, is absent from Photo 1. Here
it has either dark paint or very little white paint.
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Photograph 4: Summer
view of Cole Digges House from the south, c.1880-1900. Elizabeth A.
Cooper's tearoom sign is in place over the front door of the Digges
House. It is thought that Cooper opened the tearoom in the cellar by
1881, and she died in 1901. The door has two six-light leaves, opening
out. Louvered shutters on the first-floor windows and dormers. Picket
fence to the right (southeast), surrounding shed-roofed porch,
square-butt shingle roof with traditional combing at the ridges and
swept valleys, installed precisely like 18th- and early 19th-century
Chesapeake shingles. It is likely that this is mid-19th-century roof
covering. Front painted white, relatively fresh, right side dirty, upper
woodwork unpainted or dark paint. Shows second left (northwest) chimney
with some damage and scrawny stove chimney on right (southeast).
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Photograph 5: Another summer view from the south, also showing the
derelict Cox House to the right, within a year or two of the fourth
photo, judging from extent of vines on the right gable and shrubs inside
the picket fence. Shows the E. A. Cooper sign, shingles, glazed front
doors and louvered shutters. The two-story frame Old York Tavern visible
to the left of the Cole Digges House looks freshly painted.
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colo/cole-digges-hsr/hsr8.htm
Last Updated: 19-Jan-2005
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