images of each other.  Frequently, there was a widow’s walk on the flat portion of the roof.  This was done in imitation of the New Englander’s house design, which was to accommodate the needs of the numerous ship’s captain’s wives, who paced their walks to catch the first glimpse of the mast head of their returning husband’s ships.  As many a ship did not return, the wives by their vigils were ascertaining if they were widows or not.  

            The initial love fest between the New Englanders and the Southern plantation culture that occurred with the signing of the Constitution proved to be short lived.  The prelude to the War of 1812 caused a move for cessation from the Union by the New Englanders, and the widow’s walks were the first architectural feature of the Federal Style that was abandoned by Southerners.  Note that the Hendricks mansion of 1806 retained a flat roof, but no widow’s walk.  This suggests an earlier date for the Thomas Price mansion. 

            For nearly a century the home has been known as “Number 4”, in honor of its telephone number on the first phone system in Elk Garden.  However, this name currently competes with another.  After the death of his first wife, Mary Taylor Carter, William Alexander Stuart married Ellen Spiller Brown, and they moved to “Number 4”.  He named the property either Ellenwood, or Ellenbrook, after her.  The current owners are trying to decide which name they will use. 

           The Thomas Price Mansion was recently restored by the Ratcliffe Foundation, rumored to have cost over a million dollars. 

THE HENDRICKS MANSION 

            In 1782 Thomas Hendricks had land surveyed on the bottoms surrounding the junction of Loop Creek and Elk Garden Creeks (then called the North and South Forks of Cedar Creek).  He dammed the creek, built a grist mill, put in a store, and became very prosperous.  Still standing on the south side of the Hendrick’s mill pond in ruins is a surprisingly elegant house, even by standards of a century later.  It is a two story simple Federal design, with hard wood wainscoting, mantles, and flooring.  It is the first Hendricks home, built in 1769.  Just upstream from it lies, also in ruins, a similar but much smaller house, which traditionally housed the Hendricks’ household slaves. 

           In 1806 on a hill high above the northern side of the mill pond he built a magnificent Federal styled mansion.  It was inherited by his son, Aaron.  In 1868 it was sold to William Alexander Stuart.  At some point, W. A’s. son, Henry Carter, moved in while awaiting construction of Rosedale West.  In the mid twentieth century, this mansion, along with the land of Elk Garden proper, passed out of the Stuart Land and Cattle Company to W. A.’s grandson by Dale Carter Stuart, State Senator Harry Carter Stuart, who ran it as the Elk Garden Cattle Company.  Upon Senator  Stuart’s  death,    A.  M.   “Smiley”  Ratliff,  Jr.  bought  the  Elk  Garden  Cattle  ... Continued, Page 20