Benjamin Deyerle (7 September 1806–5 May 1883), builder, was born most likely in Montgomery County. The deaths of his parents, Charles Deyerle and his second wife, Elizabeth Leffler Deyerle, left him orphaned at about age nine, but he was raised by members of his extended family. By 1832 he had moved to the part of Botetourt County that in 1838 became Roanoke County and in the twentieth century part of the city of Roanoke. Deyerle executed a bond on 7 October 1833 and on that date or soon afterward married Julia Ann Shaver. They had at least five sons and four daughters. Deyerle operated and was part-owner of a mill, known initially as the Deyerle-Garst (sometimes Deyerle-Gorst) mill. In addition to cultivating grains and other crops, he raised cattle and horses, distilled and sold whiskey, constructed log buildings, including his own residence, and between 1848 and 1861 built (and may have designed) several large brick houses.

In 1848 Deyerle completed construction of a large brick house, known as Intervale, for a wealthy farmer who lived near him. A prototype for the other houses he built during the ensuing dozen years, it was a two-story L-shaped structure with Greek Revival details—most notably heavy corner pilasters of parged whitewashed brick&emdash;derived from popular architectural pattern books. About 1849 he completed Belle Aire for a close acquaintance and Buena Vista for a wealthy and influential patron. For his own growing family Deyerle built a very similar house, later known as Lone Oak, about 1850. Deyerle constructed Cave Spring Methodist Church near his own home in 1854, the house known as White Corners (named for its white pilasters) about 1856, and the Benjamin Keagy House about 1857. A few buildings in neighboring Franklin County are also credibly attributed to Deyerle, including a house he owned, later called Evergreen, and the Fairmont Baptist Church. Skilled enslaved laborers, particularly a man named Charles Lewis, deserve much of the credit for the quality of construction.

Other members of Deyerle's family also engaged in brickmaking and in constructing residences, churches, and other buildings in the area, two of them more prolifically than Benjamin Deyerle. By the 1930s Deyerle had become the best-known member of his family and was remembered in association with many local architectural landmarks, some of which were built not by him, but by his kin. In 1860, about the time that he ceased building houses, Deyerle owned real estate in two counties and personal property (including more than forty enslaved people) worth nearly $120,000. He was a Unionist during the secession crisis. After the Civil War, he successfully petitioned for a presidential pardon, not because he had supported the Confederacy but because the value of his property required that he seek a pardon.

Deyerle sold his interest in the mill after the Civil War. In 1878 he and his wife deeded their Roanoke County property to one of their sons in exchange for his promise to care for them for the rest of their lives and reserving for themselves use of three rooms of the house, as well as the dining room, kitchen, one horse, and one cow. Benjamin Deyerle died, probably at his son's residence in Roanoke County, on 5 May 1883 and was buried in a small family cemetery southeast of the house.

Sources Consulted:
Birth and death dates on marble obelisk in family cemetery; feature story in Roanoke World-News, 14 May 1960; Elizabeth Cheek, "Benjamin Deyerle, Builder of Fine Homes," Journal of the Roanoke Valley Historical Society 8 (summer 1972): 1–13; Michael J. Pulice, "Unraveling the Benjamin Deyerle Legend: An Analysis of Mid-Nineteenth-Century Brickwork in the Roanoke Valley of Virginia," Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture 12 (2005): 32–48; Pulice, Nineteenth Century Brickwork in the Roanoke Valley and Beyond: Discovering the True Legacies of the Deyerle Builders (2011); Botetourt Co. Marriage Bonds; Virginia Case Files for United States Pardons (1865–1867), United States Office of the Adjutant General, Record Group 94, National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C.; Roanoke Co. Deed Book, K:5–6; some Deyerle correspondence in Shirley Plantation Collection, John D. Rockefeller Jr. Library, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Williamsburg; Deyerle and Garst Mill Ledger (1859–1867) and Peyton M. Lewis (formerly Deyerle's slave) Letters, both History Museum of Western Virginia, Roanoke; "Rev. Peyton M. Lewis, Slave, Teacher, Preacher," Journal of the Roanoke Historical Society 7 (summer 1971): 50–53; E. H. Weaver, "Benjamin Deyerle Home" (typescript dated 2 Sept. 1936), and "Deyerle-Gorst Mill Site" (typescript dated 1 Sept. 1936), both in Works Progress Administration, Virginia Historical Inventory, Library of Virginia; death notice with erroneous age "about 72" in Roanoke Leader, 10 May 1883.

Written for the Dictionary of Virginia Biography by Michael J. Pulice.

How to cite this page:
Michael J. Pulice, "Benjamin Deyerle (1806–1883)," Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Library of Virginia (1998– ), published 2023 (http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/dvb/bio.asp?b=Deyerle_Benjamin, accessed [today's date]).

Return to the Dictionary of Virginia Biography Search page.