Heiskell-McKennie House, Main Street Elevation from Historic American Building Survey submission, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, accessed 27 July 2011.
Peter Henry Heiskell was born in 1823 and was about 16 years old when he attended his first session at the University of Virginia in 1839-1840. He listed A St C Heiskell as his “Parent or Guardian” in the UVa Matriculation Book. Alexander St. Clair Heiskell built a Federal-style brick town house less than half a mile from the University in 1826 or 1827, was residing on the property in 1830 according to a deed of trust, and sold it in 1831.1 Consequently his son, Peter, would have lived for some time during his childhood years in what is now the Dinsmore House Inn at 1211 West Main Street.
Heiskell skipped a year at the University and then returned for the 1841-1842 session where he studied Chemistry, Medicine, and Anatomy & Surgery. He did not earn a graduate medical degree which was not unusual at the time. Of the 42 students who studied medicine during the 1841-1842 session at UVa, only 18 were awarded the Doctor of Medicine degree.2 “Rigid examinations” were required for graduation so some students did not pass them or elected not to take them. Students could use a session of medical study at the University of Virginia as partially meeting the requirements for a diploma from “Philadelphia and other city schools ….”3
P Henry Heiskell signed as a non-resident student on September 16, 1841, that he had carefully read the laws of the University. University of Virginia Matriculation Books, 1825-1904, (RG-14/4/2.041), 123. Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Virginia Library.
Dr. Heiskell was the second youngest signer of the fee bill as he would have been in his 25th year in 1848. The 1850 census lists his birthplace as Virginia and shows that his household included his wife, Hester, two young girls, and an 18-yesar-old mulatto male.4 Apparently not long after the 1850 census the family left Charlottesville and moved to Maryland, his wife’s birthplace. Their youngest daughter died in 1854 and was buried in Maryland as were at least three other young daughters. According to a form for the National Register of Historic Places, Dr. Heiskell purchased 320 acres of land for $7,000 in 1854 in the Oxon Hill district of Prince George’s County. A three-story plantation house was constructed shortly after the acquisition of the property which became known as Kildare. Dr. Heiskell died in 1893, leaving seven children and his wife who survived him for ten years. Kildare remained in the family until 1945 and continues to be a local landmark.5
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- K. Edward Lay, The Architecture of Jefferson Country, Charlottesville and Albemarle County, Virginia (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2000), 136; Heiskell-McKennie House, Virginia Department of Historic Resources, accessed 26 July 2011. [↩]
- University of Virginia, Catalogue of the Officers and Students of the University of Virginia (1839-1840, 1841-1842). [↩]
- University of Virginia, Catalogue (1842-1843), 17, 23. [↩]
- U.S. Census: Albemarle, Virginia, 1850, accessed 29 March 2011. [↩]
- Heiskell, Find a Grave.com, accessed 6 July 2011; Kildare, Maryland Historical Trust Inventory of Historic Properties, accessed 6 July 2011. [↩]
