The David L. Clayton House, located along Old Baltimore Road in Frederick County, approximately ten miles northwest of Winchester, stands as an excellent example of a mid-19th century Greek Revival manor characteristic of the Lower Shenandoah Valley. Constructed between 1841 and 1845 for David Little Clayton and his wife, Jane, the house, also known as Merryhearth Manor, was the centerpiece of a thriving 300-acre farm and the hub of David’s favorite (and profitable) pastime of publishing hymn books and teaching music. For a period following the Civil War, David and Jane’s son, John Henry Clay Clayton, utilized the third story of the home for the site of one of Frederick County’s earliest temporary public schools, known during the Reconstruction era as “public field schools.”