Claggett House and Reymann Memorial Farm

Photo: Dan Reichard

Visitors to the Claggett House and Reymann Memorial Farm will be treated to several activities on this Tidewater-style plantation which is now operated as a cutting-edge farm by the West Virginia University Agriculture Extension Service.
Tours of an experimental fish hatchery, breeding trophy sized brook trout, and the barns will be conducted by hayrides on Saturday at 10 am and 2 pm, and on Sunday at 12:30 pm docile animals will be available for children to pet. New this year is a hydroponics greenhouse which allows researchers to experiment with new ways of growing vegetables.
Hezekiah Claggett and his wife Louisa Baker built this Greek Revival home between 1840 and 1850 on the farm land inherited by Louisa. Claggett become on the largest landowners and hog and cattle farmers in Hardy County. The Claggett family sold the property to H. Riley Orndorff in 1900, and he sold it in 1911 to Anton Reymann, an industrialist from Wheeling who had a summer home at Capon Springs. Reymann raised pure-bred Ayshire cattle and made several improvements, including drainage ditches under 300 to 400 acres of the land.
On December 30, 1916, Reymann gave the 962-acre farm to the West Virginia Agricultural Experimental Station with the goal of making West Virginia “known as the hope of the Ayshire in this country.” That didn’t happen, and the herd was moved to a farm near Morgantown in 1937. WVU continues to use Reymann for livestock, poultry, and crop research.
The house with its distinctive red brick, gable roof, curved stairways, fireplaces, pine flooring and high ceilings was renovated in 2001 after being uninhabited for 17 years.
One of the rooms of the house will be open with a display of the history of the farm.
Open courtesy of Jerry Yates, manager, Reymann Memorial Farm.
Directions: Travel north from Wardensville on route 259, it is to the farm on the left.