315 South Culpepper Street

Whitmel Lane House

Index #359.

ca. 1870

Contributing

Large traditional 2-story 2-pile, 3-bay side-hall-plan house; exterior end chimney with tumbled weatherings on north; original windows; replacement Victorian porch of chamfered posts with simple lateral scrolls; asbestos shingles; a carpenter, Lane (1824-1901) was one of the wealthiest and most prominent free blacks in city before Civil War; bought this lot, first of several in expansion area, in 1857; lot was just outside of municipal limits; given accolades in a The Economist obituary, which was itself an honor rarely given blacks; at death owned considerable property in city; house remained in family until 1912 and has since been maintained as rental property.