Farish House hotel

Located at 300 Court Square, on the southwest corner of E. Jefferson St. and 6^th St. NE. It was operated as a hotel under various names by succession of owners until the 1960s, it is now used as office space. The eagle Tavern, a framed structure, was erected here in the late 18^th century and was replaced by this brick hotel in 1854. (The building to the right housed businesses and were torn down in 1924-25 to make way for the Monticello Hotel, now 500 Court Square.) Source; Albemarle County Historical Society.

The Farish House hotel was erected by Baptist minister William P. Farish in 1854. He had already developed a stagecoach line in 1845 when he purchased the property and erected this building on the site once occupied by the colonial era Eagle Tavern. Farish also formed an unchartered corporation known as Farish, Jones and Co. with Henry W. Jones on May 15, 1847, consolidating the industrial facilities that were attached to the site of Pireus into the formal beginning of the Woolen Mills enterprise.

It became a major stagecoach stop. Slaughter Ficklin ran Farish, Ficklin, & Co., a stagecoach business that doubled as a mail contractor service. Slaughter Ficklin was the older brother of Benjamin Franklin Ficklin, known for his involvement in starting the Pony Express and for establishing other stage coach and mail routes in the United States during the nineteenth century.

In 1846, John Glover's unconscious body was carried to the Farish House after he was struck on the head with a tent pin by a performer who he had antagonized. He later died of his injuries inside the hotel after spending one or two days there.

After the surrender of Charlottesville at the end of the Civil War, Federal occupying forces used it as a headquarters for two years. Just to the west of this property is a building completed in 1926 as the Monticello Hotel.

Other names

• Farish House

• Monticello House (1846)
• Probst Hotel (1901)
• Colonial Hotel (1914)

Eagle Hotel

On the southside of the Public Square, where the Farish Hotel is located, once stood a two-and-a-half story wooden building, then known as the Eagle Hotel. In 1828, the time occupied in reaching this place in the stage coaches from Richmond was about 28 hours.