Person:Thomas Mitchell (60)

Thomas Mitchell was a younger son who was educated for the church, but came to Virginia with his brother, William Mitchell, about 1780. He became a tobacco merchant, buying up the raw produce and shipping it abroad. During the War of 1812, he lost three ships carrying tobacco. Following the war, the French government paid a spoliation claim to compensate for such shipping losses and the family pursued it for many years thereafter. As late as 1906, lawyers were trying to gather evidence, always without success.

The business itself was successful, however, as he established a large fortune for those days. In 1786, he purchased 500 acres of land on Deep Creek in Louisa County from William Meriwether, the father of his first wife. This land was a portion of the 5,820 acres that John Syme, Sr. of Hanover County originally patented in 1730. William Meriwether then purchased 1,224 acres on the south side of Deep Creek in 1769 from Col. John Syme, Jr. Although there was already a house on the property at the time he bought it, Thomas Mitchell probably built the present brick and frame home, named "Braehead," perhaps on the site of an earlier building.

The house and 204 acres passed to his son, Thomas Hamilton Mitchell, Jr. after his mother's death, and his heirs sold it in 1860 to William O. Payne of Goochland Co. His heiress, Grace P. Clough sold it in 1968 to John Moncure and Alexander Butler. The present owner, Kenneth A. Bradshaw, acquired the house in 1970 and is restoring it to its former grandeur.

"Braehead" is a two story frame dwelling, constructed over a brick foundation, with long narrow nine over nine windows and beautiful twin brick chimneys on each end. Among the more interesting features of this home are the brick shed-like addition to the right of the building and the unique unsymmetrical window and door placement. The house is located off exit 152 of Interstate 64, and northeast on Rt 629, Fredericksburg Road, becoming Cartersville Road, on it's north side at number 2000, just inside Louisa County. A cemetery is located on the property.

A well-known story from "Braehead" concerns one extraordinary party given there. Legend states that shoemakers were hired to resole the shoes of guests as they were worn out from several days and nights of dancing. A visit by the Marquis de Lafayette or the return of son Alexander Mitchell from his medical studies at Edinburgh, Scotland are the two explanations I have heard as the occasion of the party.

1. ↑ His gravesite was near Old Sweet Springs, VA, a mineral spring to which he had gone for his health. Accompanied only by an old black servant, he died along the way. The roads must have been particularly bad because the servant was unable to move the body, and so buried it there. For several years the family attempted to recover it, always without success.