The History of "Old Sweet"

Time’s winged chariot moves swiftly on – More than two hundred years ago, in what is today one of the most pristine areas, visitors came by the thousands to visit the many natural mineral springs in the Virginia’s. Where the healing waters flowed, grand resort hotels flourished. Some still operate today, others are abandoned, but their vast edifices and cool spring houses still whisper of past grandeur. Of some, only memories and history remain.

Marshall Fishwick in his book “Springlore in Virginia” defines SPRING as a word that leaps up, gurgles, flows. Derived from German springen and Old English springan, it is widely used as both a verb and a noun. There is the act of springing or leaping; the season of the year when sweet birds sing, the object which receives and imparts mechanical power; the source from which water emerges out of the earth – and that is exactly the origin of the resort at Old Sweet. Research done by Marshall Fishwick indicates that the “Springs” were discovered in 1764 and analyzed in 1774 by Bishop Madison (President of William and Mary College). Certainly Sweet Springs was fashionable after the revolution with William Lewis in charge, prior to 1805. Little is known of what structures were there, other than accounts given by various guests who visited the springs prior to the raising of the first log hotel in 1792.

Livelier days lay ahead. Traditionally, no less an architect than Thomas Jefferson would design not only the Grand Hotel for Sweet Springs, but a whole village reminiscent of his “academic village.” Only a quarter of his proposed circle, and one of the pivotal end buildings were erected. One account given by Barbara Ruth Kidd in her Thesis, “The History of Sweet Springs” notes the following:

“In many respects, The Sweet Springs Hotel Building resembles the ones at the University of Virginia designed by Jefferson. For example, the columns, porticoes, and several other architectural technicalities are in the same in both. The building resembles in the finest detail an unidentified sketch by Jefferson in the archives of the Alderman library, Charlottesville, Virginia. Members of the Lewis family report that the original plans for the buildings as drawn by Jefferson were in the possession of the Lewis family until around 1900. Their location at present is not known. These plans were definitely labeled as having been drawn by Jefferson while the sketch in the Alderman Library is not identified, but is said by Jeffersonian experts to be lettered in his hand.”

Note: In a recent conversation the writer had with one of the last living descendents of the first William Lewis, she indicated that it is a good possibility that this document, along with several others, pictures, etc. could have been destroyed in a fire that gutted the old “Lynnside” Mansion around the year of 1933.

Even before Jefferson’s buildings, the Old Sweet “mint julep” arrived on the scene. Did it come only a few miles from the famous tavern of Colonel John Crows? This much is certain: The mint julep was alive, and well, and living at Sweet Springs by 1830. The exact recipe is among the many articles that have been written about the Old Sweet.

Gone are the days of the tally-ho, the covered wagons and the lore of the springs to take the waters, which at that time, were believed to be a cure for most ailments including fertility. In springlore, water is ritualistic, working two ways: it gives and takes away. It gives happiness, health, wisdom; takes away pain, evil and the grime of life. Did it restore beauty and potency? Certainly not. One proprietor gave to a skeptical inquiry about the water’s restoring fertility: “Sir had my spring been known in the days of Father Abraham, there would have been no occasion for a special dispensation to Sarah!”

Many persons of nobility were known to have visited the Old Sweet. Washington in 1797, Jefferson, Robert E. Lee and his famous horse, Traveler, who supposedly drank from the water of the mineral spring at Old Sweet. Traveler was foaled the spring of 1857 and died around 1872. He was raised on the Hamilton Farm near Frankford in Greenbrier County.

Colonel John Lewis I, from County Donegal Ireland, came to America in the late 1720’s and according to Peyton’s “History of Augusta County” was that county’s first white settler and founder in 1732. There he established his home in the present town of Staunton. The wife of John Lewis I was Margaret Lynn, daughter of the Laird of Loch Lynn, a woman of great refinement and high character.

Much has been written of this famous colonizer and his four sons, Thomas, General Andrew, Colonel Williams, and Colonel Charles, a group of men, distinguished both in civil and military life-explorers and surveyors, soldiers, officers, landowners, members of the Virginia Convention and of the House of Burgesses; men of culture, background and ability.

The family, though already settled in Augusta County, had the pioneer impulse to learn what lay on the other side of the western mountains and the father and sons lost no time in acquainting themselves with the region embraced by the present counties of Greenbrier, Alleghany and Monroe. Tentative hunting and exploring trips along certain of the creeks were first made; afterward, the extensive and officially sponsored journey of exploration by the son, Andrew Lewis; then the tremendous surveying task undertaken by the father and sons between the years 1749 and 1753.

Others were also becoming interested as a result of syndicates formed at that time to sell lands and many of the first purchasers, including the Lewis’, secured acreages from these land companies. Thus the connection of the Lewis family with this locality was formed although the only member to make a settlement was the son William.

Sweet Springs (Jefferson Centre at Old Sweet), is the oldest, most permanent, and most interesting of the watering places of Monroe County. James Moss, said to have been the first settler on the upper course of Dunlap, reared his cabin about 1760 near the mineral spring. He did not acquire title and disposed of his interest to William Lewis. Patent was issued in 1774. Like his more famous brothers, William Lewis was an indefatigable land prospector and secured choice tracts in several localities. But Sweet Spring was the spot he selected for a home.

After the restoration of peace, William Lewis began to develop Sweet Springs as a health resort. William Lewis was given a land grant by King George III for the Sweet Springs area which was probably part of the 8,000 acres that was his share of the estate of Colonel John Lewis, his father. After that he was known as “William Lewis of Sweet Springs” because there was always more than one William Lewis.

As a related step in his own interest, he offered to provide a home for the court of the circuit that embraced the countries of Botetourt, Greenbrier, Kanawha and Montgomery. The inducements included a courthouse and a jail. Also mentioned is a tavern. The jail is still standing and perhaps is the only structure that is left of the original buildings. (Add picture of jail). Sweet Springs was the seat of the District Court for eleven years and it was a period of discord. Morton’s “History of Monroe County” indicates that the courthouse was used in vacation time as a boarding house for hotel guests, was never in the custody of a jailor, and is in ill repair. Also, the courthouse was used for church services.

Since the removal of the court the history of Sweet Springs has been that of a well known summer resort and very small social and commercial center. Sweet Springs was always crowded in the early days. Sometimes visitors arriving as late as July had the difficult problem of finding sleeping room for themselves. Some slept on the bar room tables and on the benches of the old courthouse which at the time was the church for the Springs.

It is not known exactly when the Springs began to operate as a resort. The first record of a visitor to Sweet Springs bears the date of 1790 and is not a flattering one. Archibald Alexander, a prominent theologian at the time, wrote with disgust:

“A company of gamblers never intermitted their games day or night, Sunday or working day – sometimes came out to the fountain, adding not a little to the horrid symphony of oaths. They strove to out do one another in the rapidity of their profane expressions!”

Until about 1792 there was probably nothing on the grounds to resemble a resort. About that year a log hotel, was erected. It was a long rambling structure with a porch extending along its full length. However, no mention is made of additional buildings on the site. Apparently there were numerous cabins or cottages by about 1835. Prolix, Peregrine (pseudonym), “Letters Descriptive of the Virginia Springs, the Roads Leading Thereto, and the Doings Thereat” describes his visit to the Springs and his surroundings with a great deal of enthusiasm:

“Four hours were taken to reach the Sweet by coach, one of the most ancient and celebrated places in the United States. The aspect of the place is lovely, the harsh and rough features which belong to more recent clearings have been mellowed and moulded in into symmetry by the gentle touch of time, that great innovator; and in Virginia mountains, almost the sole improver, because nobody else has capital enough and time is a capital fellow for time is money.

You drive into a spacious green undulating area, shaded here and there with trees, and surrounded by motley groups of frame buildings of all shapes and ages, and you see in front of you, raising behind a row of modern cabins, a remarkably beautiful rounded hill whose tree-clad top seems to lead by a gentle acclivity to the mountain range which bounds the view.

In a little valley on your left is a frame building containing two large and separate baths for the two sexes, and under its piazza is a famous spring, sweet in name but slightly acidulous in taste, sparkling and spirit, stirring like champagne (sic), and ever copiously flowing like the stream of time. This sends forth a power of water and it fills two large plunging baths which are very agreeable from the sparkling transparency and high temperature of the elements.”

The original Sweet Springs Company was incorporated January 16, 1836 by John B. Lewis and Associates. The capital stock authorized was 1,000 shares at $100.00 each, three fifths of which amount was to be held bona fide by other persons than the proprietors. The stock was to be taken within three years and the water was to be analyzed. William Lewis apparently had turned over the Sweet Springs property to his son John before 1805, because in that year, records indicate that John Lewis leased the Sweet Springs property for a period of eight years to Robert and George Turner. The lease became effective January 1, 1807.

No change in ownership of the property was made until John B. Lewis, grandson of the first William, gave a deed of trust that was to be paid in ten years. There is no evidence that Lewis failed to meet this obligation.

However, John B. Lewis’s brother, William L. Lewis, grandson of the first William, gave a deed of trust that was to be paid off in ten years. There is no evidence that Lewis failed to meet the obligation. However, John B. Lewis’s brother, William L. Lewis took over a portion of the debt in 1842 and received a deed of trust for 1,000 acres of the Sweet Springs property for security. The reasons for the debt are vague. Three years previous he had built a new and grand hotel (around 1839) and it could have been that he was unable to finance the venture. Also, local tradition and family legends hint that he may have lost it at the “gaming table.”

In 1852 the property passes out of the hands of the Lewis’, and a new company was incorporated by Oliver and Christopher J. Beirne, Allen T. Caperton and John Echols.

As stated previously, in the beginning the resort was nothing but a collection of log cabins. Even the old courthouse was used to house guests. The grand hotel (the Jefferson Building) was built in 1839, but the real expansion did not begin until Oliver Beirne became the owner of the resort.

His original idea, thwarted by the Civil War, was to make a semi-circle of buildings in the area with the bath house somewhere near the center of it. He built five brick cottages in a semi-circle eastward from the Jefferson Building toward the Central Building which he also built and which was actually the last structure to be erected. He had planned to build another row of five cottages on the other side of the Central Building with a second great hotel completing the semi-circle. Directly behind this building stood a brick building originally used as slave quarters, but later as bachelors quarters. Beyer’s painting of Sweet Springs gave a preview of Beirne’s plan. The Beyer picture of the Old Sweet showed the semi-circle completed. Perhaps the owner convinced Beyer that the plan was so far advanced that it would be best to show Sweet Springs as it would be in a few years.

The main bath house with its Romanesque arches and pilasters was built with brick about this same period of time. It is a rather formal looking building about two hundred yards from the main hotel, or quadrangular shape, with two high towers. Graceful curved stairways led to upper rooms in these towers where the bath man and bath maid slept. Looking from the porch of the hotel the ladies’ entrance was on the right and was made more exclusive by a boxwood hedge and the gentlemen’s on the left. It was the custom in those days for the ladies to wear skirted swim suits, as well as their stockings to the bath house.

Oliver Beirne died in 1888 and the Sweet Springs property was left to his grandchildren and continued as a resort under different managers until it was sold to the Old Sweet Springs Company headed by Charles C. Lewis, Jr. in 1903. The deed of 1903 stated that if the corporation containing Charles C. Lewis, Jr. and others did not pay for the resort by 1913, the Beirne heirs would repossess it. According to the Monroe County Deed Book, on February 6, 1917, John D. Lewis bid in the resort for his father on which final payment was made in April of the same year. Lewis, Jr. took over as the President of the corporation at that time.

From that year forth the resort changed hands more rapidly than previously. In 1920, John D. Lewis sold 610 acres to C. H. Paxton including all buildings and improvements on the property. After that sale the status of the resort became more and more vague. However, it was still operating in the year of 1924, according to an advertisement which was placed in the “Monroe Watchman” by C. H. Paxton.

Little is known of the position of Old Sweet for the next few years. About 1928 it was sold to Senator N. B. Dial and others who never operated it. In fact, the resort closed as a hotel after 1928, and was closed for several summers following the longest career as a resort in this part of America.

In August, 1938, it was sold to D. Moss Taylor of Roanoke, Virginia by Senator Dial. Moss Taylor for several years worked on reclaiming the old resort and made livable a large portion of the buildings.

In 1941, the State of West Virginia purchased the property at Sweet Springs from D. M. Taylor for a clinic, and operated as such for about two years. It was then converted to a personal care home for West Virginia residents and the name was changed to the “Andrew Summers Rowan Memorial Home.” Andrew Summers Rowan was a native of Monroe County (boyhood home was in Union) that carried the message to Garcia during the Spanish American War. The home operated until the late 1990’s, when it was sold at an auction to a private investor.

NEW HOPE FOR OLD SPRINGS – IN 2005, the Sweet Springs property was purchased by Warren D. Smith, and is now the “Jefferson Centre – At Old Sweet, “ and operates under the “Sweet Springs Management Company.” Tentative plans are for the total reclaiming of the existing buildings, as well as replacing others that have been torn down over the years; bottling of the water from the mineral spring as well as other springs on the property; installation of a PGA Quality 18 hole golf course, just to mention a few.

If you let your mind wander and with a little imagination, one can still envision the stages coming over the turnpikes brininging guests to the Old Sweet and the driver shouting "stage in"!