Magill-Keller house across from Fort Loudoun- 3 stories
Next time you visit the Fort Loudoun Winchester VA location, look across the street to a large brick house. It sits on ground moved there by Colonel George Washington's men. Alll the houses on that side have a steep terrace drop in their back yards as result of that earthwork.
This house has some stories well documented in Quarles' book, The Story of 100 Old Houses in Winchester Virginia originally copyrighted 1967, revised edition 1993, with 2nd printing 2005. Recently a ghost tale of it was posted. We revisit our previous research on what Quarles wrote of that house.
This house actually has several stories to it. First the Civil War story. Next the 1936 Keller Murder Story. And finally who Magill in the Civil War Story is. And about her famous Dad and daughter -- all big in their day.
The Civil War Story
The first story is of Mrs Anne E Tucker Magill taking care of the Confederates straggling from Gettysburg.
Read an eyewitness report of that.
We quote from the Quarles' book:
The Rev. Mr John A Broadus, a prominent Virginia Baptist minister, was in Winchester in the summer of 1863 preaching to various units of the Confederate Army. He spent several days at the home of Mrs Magill and recorded this experience thus:
"Winchester VA, July 8, 1863:
After dispatching my letters yesterday at twelve o'clock, I went to Mrs Magill's. Mrs M--- lives on the main street, [now N Loudoun St], which is the turnpike, right at the north end of the town, and all the wounded soldiers, who are coming from Gettysburg via Martinsburg, passed right by her door.
I found the family busy in preparing and handling out slices of buttered bread to the poor fellows, and took hold to help.
Money had been placed in Mrs M ---- hands for this purpose, by persons aware that she always did this, and so we went into it largely.
When the bread got low, she sent to the baker's for a great basket full of loaves. Pound after pound of butter was brought out with bowls of scrambled eggs to be spread on the bread instead of butter . . . . every now and then there came out a pot of coffee, and a neighbor several times sent in supplies, including some buttermilk.
The result of it was that we worked there, stopping for dinner, until five o'clock, when the supplies were exhausted, and everybody broken down, and still the wounded were pouring in, on foot, on horseback, in ambulances or wagons. They are sending on toward Staunton all that are able to go, most of them on foot; and the hospitals here, with the basement of one church, are overflowing."
Source
Garland R Quarles' book, The Story of 100 Old Houses in Winchester Virginia, 2nd printing 2005, pages 185-186:
1936 or 1935 Murder Story.
After some hours reviewing the microfilm of Winchester Star front pages (since all local killings and natural deaths received front page attention), the killing was not reported in Nov, Dec 36 or Jan 37.
The murder probably occurred the winter before in Dec 35 or Jan 36.
Quarles writes that the Keller family during its long ownership [1864-1937] probably provided most of the additions and alterations on this home.
In January 1937 Harry R Kern and James P Reardon, Special Commissioners, conveyed the house and lot Minnie F Keller and Bessie Keller Jones, the property being described as that which George W Keller died seized and possessed of ( Winchester Deed Book 11, page 278).
[George?] William Keller, who ran a hardware store at the site of 116 North Loudoun Street, had been shot and killled by a thief who followed him from his place of business in the darkness of a winter's evening for the purpose of robbing him of the day's receipts. The murderer was tried and sentenced to the electric chair, but the sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Source: Garland R Quarles' book, The Story of 100 Old Houses in Winchester Virginia, 2nd printing 2005, page 186:
Who was Magill's Daughter and Father?
Anne E Magill [Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker Magill] who inherited the home from her mom [Ann Evelina Hunter Tucker] and who had helped those Confederates straggling from Gettysburg was a widow, and the mom of a famous daugher. Anne E Magill had a famous father too.
The Daughter, Mary Tucker Magill.
Quarles writes,
Her daughter, Mary Tucker Magill, who later became an educator and well-known historian, lived there with her and expressed her own sympathy for the southern cause so openly her contempt for the Yankees so acidly that she was arrested and sent south through the lines, Miss Mary Tucker Magill's History of Virginia published in 1881 was used by several generations of Virginians as a public school textbook.
Source: Garland R Quarles' book, The Story of 100 Old Houses in Winchester Virginia, 2nd printing 2005, page 185.
This article states an earlier publishing date.
Her textbook, The History of Virginia for the Use of Schools (1873), written for students in the fourth and fifth grades, portrays Virginia’s founding fathers as wise aristocrats. Because the Virginia State Board of Education required its use in teaching Virginia history for more than forty years, Magill’s textbook shaped the historical perspective of several generations of Virginians. Magill also wrote a history of the state for younger children, published under two different titles: Stories from Virginia History, for the Young (1897) and Magill’s First Book in Virginia History (published posthumously, in 1908).
The Father, Henry St George Tucker Sr.
From 1824 to 1831 he operated the Winchester Law School.
He lived until 1848 and had many accomplishments, such as elected office, and high office in the world of law, and as an author of legal analysis, and duty in the War of 1812. We will just focus on the local law school he ran here in Winchester VA.
The Winchester Law School was located in Tucker's home at 37 South Cameron Street in the town of Winchester, according to this source.
Quarles states a more nuanced view because of the deed books of Winchester:
" . . The detached frame structure at 37 South Cameron may have been built as a schoolhouse. It was used by Streit for that purpose and from 1824 to 1831, while it was still in the hands of the Streit heirs, Judge Henry St George Tucker conducted a law school there. Miss Evalina Streit, daughter of Christian Streit, also conducted a female academy there after the law school was closed." Source: Garland R Quarles' book, The Story of 100 Old Houses in Winchester Virginia, 2nd printing 2005, pages 111.
Look how small the house is.
Then look how big it's school population is compared to other law schools of the day
See chart.
Touch or click to enlarge the chart.
Using his father St. George Tucker's copies of Blackstone's Commentaries as the basis for his instruction, Henry Tucker lectured three days each week and gave his students regular quizzes to test their knowledge. He cut out the sections on British parliament and British criminal law.
The Winchester Law School was a success, largely because of Tucker's favorable reputation as an attorney and law professor. He had 11 students in the 1824 to 1825 session, and the student body steadily increased until he had over 30 students each term. - Wikipedia on thei Winchester Law School
Finally, in the process of teaching his law students, Henry Tucker produced his Commentaries on the Law of Virginia. This excellent work was a two-volume encyclopedia of Virginia law, the first such ever produced.
[John Mercer actually published something similar but maybe not as tightly codified a 2nd time in November 1759. See his petition to sell the publication to the House of Burgesses - story on that.]
Tucker's "Commentaries" went through three editions and served as the basic treatise on Virginia civil law.
It was not superseded until the end of the nineteenth century, when John B. Minor completed his Institutes of Common and Statute Law.
But for fifty years, the mainstay and primary legal resource of the Virginia bench and bar was Tucker's Commentaries, and this treatise was the product of the Winchester Law School.
Source: https://scholarship.richmond.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1452&context=law-faculty-publications
Sources:
The Winchester Law School
This ancestry tree helps sort out name confusion:
Compiled by Jim Moyer, researched orginally in 2017, updated 10/13/23, 10/15/23
We can rule out the murder did not happen from mid Jan 1936 to 30 April 1936. We are still researching
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