The House

There’s a man named Lloyd Goddard who lives in my city. He lives in a house that has been in his family for four generations. The house was built in the late 1820s to early 1830s. During the Civil War, it was a camp for soldiers because of its strategic location. The house was located near a railroad line between Richmond and Petersburg and was less than a mile from a Confederate depot.

His family bought the house and surrounding 80 acres in 1910. They turned the land into a dairy farm. It was a dairy farm until the late 1950s, when Interstate 95 was built and the state needed the land. So the property was downsized to 7.5 acres, but the house remained standing.

Now the state wants to build a roundabout at a busy intersection near the house, and they’ve told Goddard they need the rest of his land and his house. The state will use eminent domain to seize Goddard’s property, and the house will be torn down. Goddard, 62, has lived in the house all his life. He says the state will take everything he owns.

A house that survived the Civil War and and a number of hurricanes will be demolished because it stands in the path of a road. That’s called progress. And, as Goddard said, “History doesn’t mean anything to progress.”