The J.C.M. Merrillat House is a proper mid-19th century Gothic Revival cottage complete with steep gables, scrolled bargeboards, board-and-batten siding, and diamond-pane windows. It is situated against a steep hillside within spacious, picturesquely planted grounds, in the city of Staunton’s Gospel Hill Historic District. Although the Gothic cottage was a popular house type throughout the country, the J.C.M. Merrillat House is one of the few examples of the form in the Staunton area. It was built in 1851 for Dr. Jean Charles Martin Merrillat, a native of Bordeaux, France, who in 1839 was appointed first head of the Department of the Blind at the nearby Virginia School for the Deaf and the Blind. In 1852 he became administrator for the entire school. During the Civil War, when the school was used as a military hospital, Dr. Merrillat served there as a surgeon.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
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DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia