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Continuing to circle the house, the visitor will come to the formal gardens, which were re-established about 1900. At the center, where the paths cross, is the handsome tomb with its interesting epitaph honoring the colorful William Byrd I, "Black Swan of Westover," who was buried there in 1744.

His daughter, the beautiful and tragic Evelyn Byrd, is buried near the original site of Westover Church, up the river a quarter-mile west of the house. There also are buried Theodorick Bland, from whom William Byrd I bought the Westover property in 1688; William Byrd I and his wife, the former Mary Horsemanden; and other distinguished early Virginians. Here also, according to some historians, is the third oldest known tombstone in America--that of Captain William Perry, who died August 6, 1637. The arms and epitaph engraved on this stone have been effaced by the elements in recent years.

Virginia's James River Plantations, Westover, Continuing to circle the house, the visitor will come to the formal gardens, which were re-established about 1900. At the center, where the paths cross, is the handsome tomb with its interesting epitaph honoring the colorful William Byrd I, "Black Swan of Westover," who was buried there in 1744.His daughter, the beautiful and tragic Evelyn Byrd, is buried near the original site of Westover Church, up the river a quarter-mile west of the house. There also are buried Theodorick Bland, from whom William Byrd I bought the Westover property in 1688; William Byrd I and his wife, the former Mary Horsemanden; and other distinguished early Virginians. Here also, according to some historians, is the third oldest known tombstone in America--that of Captain William Perry, who died August 6, 1637. The arms and epitaph engraved on this stone have been effaced by the elements in recent years.


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