Stranica 350 [350]
OCR
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,’’ carried 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 ‘These historical documents show the great influence he exerted over Colonial and Revolutionary affairs.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 (3171
