Overview
Edgewood Plantation stands on Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia, an 1849 Carpenter Gothic house built for the Rowland family beside the much older Harrison's Mill, on the colonial road linking the James River plantations; during the Civil War the house saw Confederate signal use and the armies of the Peninsula campaigns pass its door, and the wider plantation landscape it belongs to was worked by enslaved people, a history that must be acknowledged plainly. The house's enduring legend is Lizzie Rowland, said to have watched from an upstairs window for a sweetheart who rode away to the war and never returned, dying young with her vigil unfinished; her name scratched in a windowpane is shown to visitors, and guests of the long-running bed and breakfast have described a woman's figure at that window, footsteps on the stair, candles and lights behaving oddly, and a gentle presence in the bedrooms. These accounts should be presented as guest reports and Virginia folklore around real lives, told tenderly, with the plantation-era history handled with respect. Current room and tour details should be confirmed before publishing.