Liberia, human settlement in United States of America
Liberia is a two-story brick house built in the Federal style in Manassas, Virginia, with a side-gabled roof and a decorative brick cornice featuring a saw-tooth pattern. The interior follows an early 19th-century layout, with a central hallway and rooms arranged on either side.
The house was built in 1825 for William and Harriet Weir and changed hands several times before the Civil War broke out. General P. G. T. Beauregard used it as a Confederate headquarters in 1861, and the Union took it over the following year, with President Abraham Lincoln visiting in 1862.
The site was once a working plantation where enslaved people lived and worked, though most of their names were never recorded. The story of the Naylor family, one of the few whose history can be traced, is told in an exhibit at the Manassas Museum called Sentry to the Ages.
The house opens for visitors on Saturdays during the warmer months in the afternoon, while the grounds can be visited any day. For private tours or special events, it is worth contacting the Manassas Museum in advance.
After the war, the land was taken over by Robert Portner, a brewer from Alexandria, who turned it into a dairy farm and employed descendants of people who had been enslaved there. The house itself came through the entire conflict without major damage, which is rare for a building that served both armies in turn.
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