Woodson Law Office - History

History

The law office building was built between 1851 and 1856. It was purchased by lawyer John W. Woodson in 1856. It was a working law office during the time of the surrender of Confederate General Lee to the Union commander General Grant on April 9, 1865. Its furnishing are consistent with law offices of the time period, including an attorney's desk and a portrait of George Washington. John W. Woodson was no longer living at the time when General Lee surrendered to General Grant.

Woodson was born March 8, 1824 and died July 1, 1864. There is no confirmed evidence that it was necessarily always occupied by Woodson. He was an attorney that practiced law in the Old Appomattox Court House. Woodson rented the building from Samuel D. McDearmon starting on January 1, 1854. He used the building to store his law books, legal documents, and a change of clothing. In his book A Place Called Appomattox, historian William Marvel notes that "it was not until the first court day of 1854 that Woodson bought a hasp, hinge, and padlock for the building and a lock for the chest in which he could store a change of clothes."

In 1856 Woodson purchased the beige frame building from McDearmon, who was bankrupt by then. Woodson's village office was on the same corner lot as John Sear's blacksmith shop and had a small footprint. Woodson decided to sell the balance of the lot not used by himself to a John Plunkett, who owned the adjacent village general store known as the Plunkett-Meeks Store. The historian Marvel indicates that when John Woodson died of typhoid in 1864 "the little law office at Clover Hill" was left to his wife.