Sherwood Forest Plantation
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Sherwood Forest Plantation is located on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located on Virginia State Highway 5, a scenic byway which runs between the independent cities of Richmond and Williamsburg.
Sherwood Forest was the name USA President John Tyler gave to the home he bought near his birthplace of Greenway, Virginia, in 1842. He said it signified that he had been "outlawed" by the Whig party. He retired there when he left the White House in 1845 and spent the rest of his life there with his second wife and some of his children - he had eight with his first wife, seven with his second wife, and the last of them died in 1947.
The house, originally named "Walnut Grove," was very run-down when Tyler bought it, and Congress refused to pay him the allowance that was customary for upkeep of the White House, so Tyler had to pay for repairs at Sherwood Forest himself, and he did much of the work himself. Owners of the house who started restoring it in the mid-20th century started removing some home-made storm windows and then discovered from old records that Tyler had built them himself, so they kept them. One of the house's claims to fame is the length of the long, skinny ballroom Tyler had added to the house to accommodate the style of dancing popular then - what is today called "line dancing" but was then the "Virginia reel."
External links
- Sherwood Forest webpage (http://www.sherwoodforest.org/)