Holland-Page Place Museum

The Holland Page Place is a post-Civil War log cabin built by John Benjamin Page. The property includes farmland, woods, and the remains of the Page Family gold mine. Mrs. Sara Holland Loving donated this property in 1998 to the Society. In 2006, the Society completely restored the cabin to 1865 in an effort to tell the story of everyday farm life in Fluvanna.

The cabin is located on Route 601 between Palmyra and Wilmington. Holland Page is owned, operated and maintained by the Fluvanna Historical Society.

History of the Holland-Page Place Cabin 

John Benjamin Page built the log cabin on a stone foundation (English basement) in 1865.  He had originally come to Fluvanna County in 1840 in search of gold. The remnants of the Long Island Gold Mine, owned by George Pace in the late 1860s, is located behind the cabin area along the Long Island Creek, though they are no longer operable or reachable.  There were some 300 gold mines in central Virginia and approximately seven in Fluvanna County.

At the end of the Civil War, John Benjamin Page found himself in the same poor conditions as many post war citizens without a home; he had to build a home for himself and his new wife, Catherine Pace, whom he married the day after General Robert E. Lee signed the surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865. Page built his log home on farmland directly above the Pace family gold mine.  He reputedly built the entire cabin mostly by himself using nearby local stone and rock, trees from the woods, and mud found on the property, carting logs to the Sunnyside Farm sawmill across the road for shaping and planing.  He was said to have forged the nails himself and purchased only window glass.  Page died at the age of 76 in 1912.  The basement would have been used for the kitchen, cooking foods, and storing foods, and perhaps for dining.  

In 1925, John Wills Holland bought the cabin and the land, which was across from his home, Sunnyside.  At John Wills Holland’s death, the property was passed to his son, John Wheeler Holland. In 1998, the log cabin along with eight acres was donated to the Fluvanna Historical Society by Sara Holland Loving.  Mrs. Loving had lived here for many years prior to her gift to the Society, and it had been made comfortable and modernized for her use.  When she gave Fluvanna Historical Society the cabin, it was her dream to see it restored to its 1865 roots.

In May 2005, The Society received a generous grant from an anonymous donor to begin work on the restoration of the log cabin back to the era following the Civil War.  The work began in May 2006 and was completed in November 2006.  Teddy Bance of Fluvanna County was selected to work on this project.  In November 2006 the Society was awarded the 2006 Public Preservation Project of the Year Award by the Thomas Jefferson Chapter of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.