Location: On west side of the road leading up Birchfield from Wise and about two miles from the Courthouse.

Date: 1861.

Owners: John Gilliam acquired a boundary of land around this place about 1840 and he sold this tract to Ellis Dean, September 16, 1861. Ellis Dean built  the house and lived here until about 1883. Under a Chancery
Cause of September 1, 1883 the place was sold by E. M. Fulton, Commissioner, and deeded to L. C. Holdway, September 7, 1886. Holdway sold the place to Vicars and Kelly.

Description: The Ellis Dean house was a one story log house with a kitchen built to the rear. Board covered with stone chimney at the north end. The loft of the house was rather high and, as most of the earlier pioneer homes, could be used for sleeping quarters. The house had no porch. Wide batten door and one window in front. Plank floors. The house was mud daubed and considered a very good house for that early date. Surrounded by a green lawn with an old fashioned paling fence. Two very fine and large evergreen trees are
yet standing at this old place. The house is torn away but the old barn is still standing and is in a fair state of preservation.
     
Historical Significance: Ellis Dean was a very early pioneer settler of Wise County. He was a native of Scott Co., VA and was married to Minerva a daughter of Schuyler Hamilton. He was a very pious old fellow and wore a long mustache. One of his sons, Jasper, was a school teacher and went to Texas where he died of fever. Ellis Dean went to Texas to join this son and whether he didn't like the place or whether the son had died before his father got there, he did not unload his belongings from the ox-cart that he had made the trip in, but turned
around and made the trip back to Wise County.
     L. C. Holdway came to Wise County from Scott County and was a brother of Major Henry W. Holdway who was a lawyer of Gate City. Cyatt Holdway was well known in and around Wise County. He served as Supervisor of the Gladeville District of Wise County for five terms, qualifying at the June Term of
Court 1887-1889, 1899 and 1901. His sister Ellender M. (Known to the older people as Aunt Ell) married Charles W. Kilgore and after his death, married Prof. J. F. Johnson who was the father of C. A. Johnson of Wise County.

Source of Information: C. A. Johnson, J. E. Lipps, D. C. Dean and Court Records.