The Hawkins Kirby House is located on 104 East Market Street. The lots the house now stands upon were purchased by Edmund Waller Hawkins, a lawyer from Virginia, in 1843. The current structure was first built sometime after this, and in 1868 the house was acquired by William H. Kirby, a noted steamboat captain. William H. Kirby died in 1908, and the ownership of the house proceeded to his wife, Lydia C. (Winters) Kirby, who died in 1924, and from then on to Margaret C. Kirby, who was to be the last of the Kirby owners. After she died, ownership passed to the Brown family, with Mrs. Beall Summons Brown eventually conveying the property to her granddaughter Harold Brown Connely (later Weldon) in 1939. It was donated to the historical society by Harold Brown Weldon in 1984 and subsequently restored at the direction of Dr. Carl Bogardus. Dr. Bogardus received a state preservation award for the renovation of the building into a museum, meeting place, and apartment.
The Hawkins-Kirby House now serves as the home of the Historical Society, with the apartment having since been converted into the Heritage Research Center. The Hawkins-Kirby House is an excellent example of Steamboat Gothic style buildings, and now comfortably houses and displays archive materials, historical items, works of local art, and more.
