Allstadt House and Ordinary
house in Jefferson County, West Virginia
The Allstadt House and Ordinary was built about 1790 on land owned by the Lee family near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, including Phillip Ludwell Lee, Richard Bland Lee and Henry Lee III. The house at the crossroads was sold to the Jacob Allstadt family of Berks County, Pennsylvania in 1811. Allstadt operated an ordinary (a tavern) in the house, and a tollgate on the Harpers Ferry-Charles Town Turnpike, while he resided farther down the road in a stone house. The house was enlarged by the Allstadts c. 1830. The house remained in the family until the death of John Thomas Allstadt in 1923, the last survivor of John Brown's Raid.
The property was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1985.
It was purchased by the American Battlefield Trust, which in 2019 donated it to the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park.
John Brown's raid
The house's chief historic significance came in 1859, when John Brown launched his raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown ordered a detachment of his forces under John Cook to go to Beall-Air and take hostage the owner, Colonel Lewis Washington, and free his slaves. On their return to Harpers Ferry with Washington, the party stopped at Allstadt's and took Allstadt and his son John Thomas, and freed seven slaves.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Allstadt House and Ordinary” as house in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as house in Jefferson County, West Virginia. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 31, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4733280. Authority coordinates are 39.316, -77.756. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1790, 1811, 1830 and 1923.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Allstadt House and Ordinary”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Allstadt House and Ordinary primary sources, Allstadt House and Ordinary archive and Allstadt research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Allstadt House and Ordinary”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Allstadt House and Ordinary” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.