After several months spent driving Mathews County’s back roads, Dave Brown and Thane Harpole of DATA Investigations LLC of Gloucester have completed a grant-funded architectural survey of 222 county structures. They discussed the survey with members of the Mathews County Historical Society during an Oct. 1 meeting at Kingston Parish Hall.

Brown said the reconnaissance survey included a wide range of structures, from houses to wharves, stores and churches. Mathews County is one of the least surveyed localities in Virginia, he said, and the state previously only had 177 properties in its database for the county. Forty-nine of the recent surveys were repeats of some of the previous ones, he said, so DATA Investigations’ work nearly doubled the number of known structures in Mathews that are at least 50 years of age.

Each of the surveys took only about 15 to 20 minutes of on-site time, said Brown. Investigators would stop by a property, ask for permission to walk around the grounds, take photos and measurements of each structure, and sketch a map of the way buildings were situated. Sometimes the property owner would walk with them and share information.

The information was compiled into a 121-page report, complete with historical photos of some of the properties from the G.B. Lorraine Collection, the Milton Murray Collection, and the archives of the Library of Virginia. 

The Lorraine Collection is the single largest collection of architectural images for Mathews County, said Brown, with images that span three decades, from the 1930s to the 1960s. Lorraine was a real estate agent who routinely took photos of properties, he said.

Milton Murray’s collection “is priceless,” said Brown, with images of everything from commonplace buildings to archaeological sites and ruins.

“He recorded so many things,” he said.

Brown said he doesn’t know where some of the buildings in the photos are located, and he fears that some of them may have been torn down.

The survey found at least 10 to 15 buildings that are eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, said Brown, as well as another 40 to 60 buildings that could contribute to the National Registry system.

Harpole said he and Brown had been particularly interested in capturing information about buildings that were abandoned and likely to fall down.

“Some were interesting and some were run-of-the-mill,” Harpole said, “but we got a good understanding of architecture all through the county, even up to the 1950s.”

In addition to information about specific buildings, the report includes a brief history of Mathews County and information about such topics as ethnic and immigration patterns, education, commerce, religion, and other themes as they apply to buildings in Mathews County.

Brown said that the county has “an amazing array of unique, very well-done types of buildings from different periods.”

In the coming months, DATA Investigations will undertake an archaeological survey of county sites, as well, said Harpole. Funded by a grant from Mathews County, the survey will include approximately 100 sites of archaeological interest, he said, adding, “There’s a lot of history to be recorded.”