Historic Williamsburg

47. Holt's Storehouse

Williamsburg, VA

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Henry Gill, the original owner of colonial lots 49 and 50, purchased the property for thirty shillings in 1707 and ran an ordinary, or tavern, from his home until he died around 1721. John Holt, a Williamsburg merchant, built a "new store" on the property around 1746. Wealthy landowner and slaveholder William Waters purchased both lots in 1754 and built his home, the Waters House, as well as the Waters Storehouse. He sold the portion of his western lot that contained John Holt's store to William Holt, John Holt's brother, in 1760. Holt operated a general store on the property between 1760 and 1770. Mary Dickenson, a milliner, rented the establishment after April of that year. It continued to be used as a store throughout the remaining eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Nearly every dwelling and business on the square burned down in a great blaze called the Harris Fire in 1842.