Stranica 350 [350]
SABINE HALL
But when Spring winds blow o’er the pleasant places
The same dear things lift up the same fair faces."
Just such a garden is that at Sabine Hall, which
is situated on a ridge one mile back from the broad
waters of the Rappahannock River.
The house, Sabine Hall, was built in 1730 for Colonel Landon
Carter by his father, Robert Carter, of Corotoman, who was
called by his compatriots “King’’ Carter by reason of his very
extensive possessions in the Colony of Virginia.
Colonel Carter, like many another squire of his time, found
great delight in Horace, and legend has it that he named his estate
for Horace’s Sabine farm because of his interest in the Roman poet.
The house, with its high ceilings, spacious rooms and wide
halls, remains today one of the finest among the Colonial dwellings
of the Old Dominion. The walls of the drawing-rooms and great
halls are hung with family portraits, among them being pictures of
Landon Carter and “the three great ladies who successively bore
his name." One of the family’s most valued possessions is a fine
portrait of King Carter. The estate, consisting of some four
thousand acres, is on the Rappahannock, in Richmond County, not
far from Menokin, the home of Francis Lightfoot Lee. It was at
Sabine Hall that Colonel Carter, ‘‘retired from public praise,’’ car¬
ried on his famous correspondence with General Washington and
the Lees, much of which has been preserved. ‘These historical
documents show the great influence he exerted over Colonial and
Revolutionary affairs.
On one front of the Colonial brick house are lawns many acres
in extent shaded by stately old trees. On the other, commanding
a beautiful view of the lowlands and river, is a very lovely terraced
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