Upper Brandon Plantation

[1] Upper Brandon plantation was part of a 1616 original land patent of 5,000 acres granted to Captain John Martin, one of the founders of Jamestown.

Richard Quiney, the brother of the son-in-law of William Shakespeare, purchased the property from Martin's grandson and shared ownership with John Sadler (and possibly with William Barker).1 For almost 100 years, these men or their heirs were absentee owners who bought an additional 2,000 acres.

When he came of age, George Evelyn Harrison received the original Brandon house and divided the land with his brother.

William Byrd Harrison, an 1820 graduate of Harvard University inherited the property now known as Upper Brandon and completed the main building and its two dependencies in 1825.

The main house at Upper Brandon is a five-bay center hall, red brick structure built in the Federal style with a low hip roof with a widows walk.

The two smaller three-bay dependencies had similar configurations at either end of the main structure, connected by low hyphens that are partially below grade.

James River Corporation later acquired the adjoining Edloe property from Frederick and Legare Thompson Robertson.