Landscape Information
Commissioned in 1855 for prominent lawyer and merchant Thomas Wallace, this Italianate residence was built on South Market Street in one of Petersburg’s fashionable mid- to late-nineteenth century neighborhoods. The Thomas Wallace House is one of several surviving high-style residences built for the city’s manufacturing and commercial elite during antebellum Petersburg’s heyday as an industrial, commercial, and railroad center.
During the Civil War, the house served as the meeting place between General Grant and President Lincoln on April 3, 1865, the day following the fall of Petersburg. At what was their last meeting before the President was assassinated, they discussed the impending conclusion of the war and plans for Reconstruction. Serving as General Grant’s headquarters in Petersburg, it was on the front porch that he learned of the fall of Richmond to Union forces.
Located at the corner of South Market and Brown Streets, the property originally extended further to the west and included outbuildings, stables, and gardens. Eventually reduced to a half-acre city lot, the site retains some of its historic landscape features, including an early twentieth century cast iron fence on the two street fronts, granite curbing, and mature trees dating to the nineteenth century. A pair of southern magnolias symmetrically placed on either side of the entry walk frames the front façade, while a pecan tree anchors the northwest corner of the yard. Leyland cypress hedges screen the structure from a parking lot to the rear and the adjacent historic church to the south. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and is a contributing resource in the South Market Street Historic District, designated in 1992.
