Updated: 6/2/2012 
Wilderness Road Regional Museum
Dublin, Virginia
Description

The Wilderness Road Regional Museum is located in historic Newbern, Virginia. Newbern, located in Pulaski County, had its official beginning March 3, 1810, when Adam Hance laid off 28 lots fronting on the Wilderness Road. Because of its early significance, Newbern was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

History

The Wilderness Road Regional Museum is located in historic Newbern, Virginia. Newbern, located in Pulaski County, had its official beginning March 3, 1810, when Adam Hance laid off 28 lots fronting on the Wilderness Road. Because of its early significance, Newbern was placed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

The earliest building restrictions drafted by Adam Hance required each purchaser of a lot to build "a hewn log house at least one and a half stories high, with a shingled roof, brick or stone chimney, seams filled with lime mortar, two glass windows with twelve lights each." These were the minimum requirements set forth.

Henry Hance built such a house in 1810 on lot No.2 of the 28 lots, and now is the eastern portion of the Wilderness Road Regional Museum. (In 1812 Hance became the postmaster of Newbern and later operated a tavern in his log house.) In 1816 a weatherboarded house was built on Lot No. 4 by Adam Hance, the father of Henry, and this, today, is the western portion of the Museum.

By 1851 the dog trot which connected the two domestic units was replaced by the present Giles room. Henry's log house and father Adam's weatherboarded house, combined with the additions, resulted in the 100 foot length building of today.

In 1837, Virginia, the only child of Henry and Sarah Hance, married Jabin B. Alexander from Monroe County, West Virginia, and the house had been the home of Hance's and Alexander's until the 1970's. It was acquired by the New River Historical Society for a Museum on April 16, 1980.

Artifact Collections

Early tools, buildings, civil war artifacts as well as special collections.

Research Collections

Library located upstairs for southwestern Virginia genealogy research. Many historical documents from early Montgomery and Pulaski County.

Governance

Owned and operated by the New River Historical Society

Library

Access: General Public

Appointment required: True

Services
Gift Shop
Group Tours
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Virginia Association of Museum's 2025 Annual Conference!

March 15 - 18, 2025

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Raleigh, North Carolina

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March 31 - April 3, 2025

Washington, Arkansas

New York Museum Association 2025 Conference in Ithaca, NY

April 5 - 8, 2025

Ithaca, New York

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