Ludington House
Within sight of Route 219, between Frankford and Renick, and almost hidden in a group of trees, may be glimpsed the red bricks and green shutters of the Ludington farmhouse, though the name of Ludington is now extinct in Greenbrier County. It was Francis and Andrew Ludington who first secured, in 1799, a land grant of four hundred acres on the Greenbrier River, and there carried on extensive business of manufacturing salt, which was hauled over the mountains by oxen to market at Staunton, Virginia.
The village of Frankford, laid off in 1801 by a man named Pennell, was named for Frank Ludington, who built the first cabin and was its first merchant, while Esau Ludington, a noted woodsman and scout, built one of the first mills. In the Battle of Point Pleasant he was ordnance master. An amusing little story told of him illustrates well the unmilitary independence of the mountaineers - spendid fighters, but exasperating beyond endurance to such trained leaders and disciplinarians as General Andrew Lewis. The men began complaining that Esau did not serve out the powder fast enough, whereupon he threw down the powder can, shouldered his gun, and went out on the field, where he remained fighting according to his own ideas until the battle was ended.
Esau Ludington had a son, Andrew, who married Elizabeth Watts, and their son, Samuel C. Ludington, born 1821, was a very well-known cattle merchant in the county for thirty-seven years. During the Civil War he was employed to buy cattle for the Confederate government, and in that service is said to have bought and sold 120,000 head of cattle. In 1869, at the second county fair he exhibited a 4,400 pound Shorthorn steer, which created a sensation, being the largest steer ever produced in the state at that time. This animal was called "Stonewall Jackson" and had previously been exibited in Staunton and other places. The Lewisburg newspaper of August 15, 1868, speaks of him as then seven years old, seventeen hands high, weighing 4,200 pounds, "and still growing", and states that he was to be taken to New York to be shown the following spring.
The favorite method of showing off his great size, was to empty a half-bushel measure of shelled corn on his broad back, "and not a grain would fall off".! After the fair, which was held on the site of the present military school, in the northern part of Lewisburg, he was sold to Mr. George L. Peyton, manager of the White Sulphur Springs, for five hundred dollars. He was so enormous that a special wagon had to be built, and six oxen were required to haul him to his new owner.
It is thought that the Ludington house was built by Samuel, although possibly by his father, Andrew. It is constructed of brick made on the site, and is square, with shuttered windows on both floors, and a very low roof. Small porticoes have been replaced by larger porches, and a glass sun-room added. Otherwise the house is as it was originally, with nine square rooms, three stairways, wide floor boards, and two cellars, one of which has overhead sills of whole oak tree trunks, with the bark still in place.
Mr. and Mrs. Asa Squires have owned the farm since 1905, and are occupants of this house, comfortably situated with rolling fields around it.
