Longwood Estate

Peter Johnston (1763-1831)--jurist, Speaker of the House of Delegates (1805-1807), and father of Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston--inherited Longwood estate from his father. He sold the property after he became a judge on the General Court of Virginia in Washington County in 1811. State delegate and businessman Nathaniel E. Venable inherited the property from his relative Samuel Woodson Venable and built a house there about 1815, soon after a fire destroyed an earlier structure. The State Teachers College at Farmville, now Longwood University, obtained the house in 1929. In 1949, the college incorporated Longwood in its name.