Bocock-Isbell House

The Bocock-Isbell House is a structure within the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park. It was registered in the National Park Service's database of Official Structures on June 26, 1989.

History
The Bocock-Isbell House has major importance to the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park by virtue of its association with the history and the site of General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant of the American Civil War. It was constructed in 1849 to 1850 by Thomas S. Bocock and Henry F. Bocock, brothers. Thomas was a member of the United States Congress and Speaker of the Confederate House of Representatives. At the time Henry was Clerk of the Court for Appomattox County. Lewis Daniel Isbell (1818-1889)was Appomattox County Commonwealth Attorney during the American Civil War (Judge later) and occupied the house at the time General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in 1865. He was Appomattox County's representative to the Secession Convention of 1861 and voted to secede from the Union.

Historical significance
The Bocock-Isbell House has importance because of its distinctive characteristics of a type, period, and method of construction during the nineteenth century in rural Virginia. The building with its resources associated with the Bocock-Isbell House are typical of both a county government seat ("court house") in Piedmont Virginia in the mid-nineteenth century and of a farming community in Virginia.

Description
The Bocock-Isbell House is much like the Peers House. The post and beam house is a three bay two-story structure. The Bocock-Isbell House is nineteen feet wide by fifty feet deep with a raised basement of brick laid in common bond. The gable roof is covered with wood shingles. The house frame is sheathed by weatherboards. The southeast closet extension has a shed roof, is two and a half feet by six and a half feet.

The north (entrance) porch has a flat roof of nearly fifteen feet by ten and a half feet. The south porch has a tin shed roof twenty feet by ten and a half feet. Both porches are on brick piers. The exterior of the house is restored and the interior is reconstructed. The first-floor, second-floor and basement windows are 6/6 DH. The first and second floor windows have shutters. The north facade entry door is a wood door with four raised panels, with a fifteen-light transom above.

The Bocock-Isbell House was restored in 1948 to 1949 and preserved in 1992 to 1993. Work was done on it again to stabilize it in 1995 and again it was preserved in 1999.