Saluda’s Oakenham played big role in Middlesex history

Home likely site where scheme hatched to strip Urbanna’s county seat status

by Larry Chowning –

Standing on the balcony of Oakenham, looking out over the fields, one can reflect on the generations of those who lived there and the significance of the embattlement that led to the greatest political upheaval in county history — moving the courthouse from Urbanna to Saluda.

Past and present members of the Middlesex County Museum Board toured the grounds of Oakenham in Saluda in April as the worn and tattered old homeplace of the Fauntleroys and Grays looks every bit of its 185 years.

Urbanna was a port town created on paper by the Virginia General Assembly in 1680 and had been the Middlesex County seat since 1748. By 1840s, the old colonial courthouse building in Urbanna was in need of repair and enlargement and citizens complained of the slow moving ferry across Urbanna Creek to the town and courthouse.

Most likely Fauntleroy and others hatched their plan to move the county seat to Saluda sitting around his dining room table at Oakenham. Anecdotal history reflects that the Saluda group won the vote by one vote cast by an elderly, sick citizen who had to be carried to the voter box.

Oakenham was once the centerpiece of Saluda and was where the brain trust came for the political change that established Saluda as the county seat. Fauntleroy named the village after the Saluda River in South Carolina…