COLONIAL Cole Digges House Historic Structures Report

Preface

Thomas Pate built a home on Lot 42 in Yorktown shortly after 1700. As such it is the second oldest surviving home in the town. It was among the properties added to Colonial National Historical Park on the purchase of the Blow Estate by the Federal government in October 1968. The house "is architecturally important and contributes a good deal to the Main Street scene in the key 'Customhouse' — Nelson House — Grace Church Sector." Study of the building was incorporated into the Park's Resource Study Program and COL-H-14a was projected to cover the documentary aspects of this study. This proposal envisioned, and the report which follows offers, "as full a file as possible of detailed historical information about the house and its use, the grounds and occupants with particular emphasis on the 18th century."

The author is particularly indebted, in the issuance of the report in the form that it has here, to the services of Mrs. Francis McLawhorn of the Colonial staff who produced the working typed draft from a difficult long hand copy, and to Frances Gastellum of the Davison of History, who prepared the final copy.

Yorktown
October 15, 1969

Charles E. Hatch, Jr.