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Sometime, perhaps around mid-afternoon, on October 13, 1864 Albert Gallatin Willis enjoyed a meal with his friend Lucy Twisdale at Rose Cliff, an imposing residence on the main street in Flint Hill. The house, just south of the Baptist Church, remains. At the time Lucy and Albert shared their dinner, the building was considerably wider; it would have extended to perhaps to the middle of today’s road. The brick pattern on the facade facing the street indicates truncation of the western side at some later date.
The exact hour is not certain, however it is clear that after dining Willis made his way several miles south from Flint Hill to the intersection then known as Gaines Crossroads. Not far from the imposing mansion that gives its name to present day Ben Venue he arrived at the plantation blacksmith shop. This modest structure still sits just southeast of the manor house on the side of the old Richmond Road (today’s VA Rt. 729) about 200 yards north of US 211.
Any time of year the full splendor of Rappahannock County is abundantly evident at the ancient
crossroads. The spot evokes an almost eerie sense of peace and beauty; some might describe the
scene as a visual invocation of heaven. In the afternoon sun, it would have been difficult for Willis to miss the red, orange, and yellow colors of the changing season dancing on the surrounding hills and distant ridge line. One hopes he had the time to ponder them. Perhaps he may have also recalled, ironically, the words of Keats: “Beauty is truth, truth, beauty...” but it was hard to sort out the timeless, interwoven meaning of the line in those days.. .still is.
At some other time or place Wilis might also have pondered the formality of his name. An earlier Albert Gallatin was Secretary of the Treasury under Jefferson and had the longest tenure ever (13 yrs) in that position. Quite prominent in his time, his statue stands at the north entrance of the U.S. Treasury on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, solitary testimony to his influence. Many children in the mid-1800s seem to have been his namesake. The secretary was the famous one. Our A.G. Willis was but a humble country seminarian, but that would soon __
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