The Return of Panecillo

In 1997, thanks to Don France (my father) and Bob Johnston, I learned that Panecillo (sometimes spelled Panicello), the house originally owned by Peter Johnston, Jr. (1763-1831) and his wife Mary Valentine Wood Johnston (1769-1825) situated on the then outskirts of Abingdon, Virginia, built from 1811 (mostly by slave labor) on their 500-acre estate, had been salvaged in the 1970s and moved to a remote, private location in North Carolina. Subsequently, correspondence ensued, phone calls and visits were made, and photos taken on at least two occasions. I was given permission to publish any photos taken during these visits, but not to reveal the exact whereabouts of the reconstituted Panecillo.

These are the original chimneys (reconstituted on this Tar Heel site) and wood beams (old oak for the core part of the house, oak and poplar for extensions). On the original homestead site, there was also a brick outbuilding (probably including a detached kitchen) and, in the 1800s at least, there must have been slave quarters, stables and other outbuildings.

On the Panecillo estate lived Peter, Mary, several of their children, and, before Peter's death, many slaves. Two of the children who grew up here were Joseph Eggleston Johnston (from around late 1811, when he was four, until 1825, when, in his late teens, he headed off for West Point) and Jane Johnston (1811-1892), who later married Harvey Mitchell (1799-1866).