Thomas Easley, son of the founder
It has been 200 years since tobacco farmer Thomas Easley built Oak Grove in in Cluster Springs, a stop on the stagecoach line before South Boston became a town. Easley, an ancestor of innkeeper Pickett Craddock, served a term in the Virginia legislature. He built a home that was two rooms wide and one deep, with woodwork and mantels in the federalist style. The house was built with heart of pine wood cut from the farm and bricks made on the farm. Easley and his wife, Harriet, had 10 children.
Education was important to the family, and the oldest son, Thomas, went to West Point but was killed in the Mexican-American War. Son William was Captain of the Black Walnut Calvary Dragoons in the Civil War’s Peninsula Campaign but got sick and came home to die in 1861.
Oak Grove opened as a bed & breakfast in 1988 and has been serving customers ever since.