171 Landon Lane , Orange, VA 22960(Orange County)

The formal entry hall terminates with the ascending staircase. There are 10 ceilings on the entry level and the red oak and heart pine floors are complemented by warm, mellowed woodwork throughout. There are 9 rooms of gracious proportion including a grand dining room and four bedrooms with two and one-half baths. There are lovely porches, screened and open. The rear porch descends to Rev. Dr. Handys porte cochre.

The land is predominantly hardy pasture on deep, fertile soils. There are two springs one of which feeds a large pond. Mountain views are available to the Southwest Mountains as well as to the Blue Ridge over the Town of Orange.

Isaac W. K. Handy (1815-1878) grew up on Marylands Eastern Shore where the Handy family had been among the earliest English settlers. Their ancestral home, Pemberton Park, is on the National Register of Historic Places. Isaac held a Doctorate of Divinity from Princeton University and was Pastor of a Portsmouth Presbyterian Church in 1863.

Portsmouth was then an area under Union control and Handy received a pass from Federal authorities to visit family and friends in Delaware. While in Delaware a newspaper reported that Handy made disparaging remarks about the American flag. While his remarks were later discredited and shown to be taken out of context, in July of 1863 Handy was arrested as a political prisoner and sent to Fort Delaware Prison on marshy Pea Patch island. Because Lincoln had suspended the writ of habeas corpus, Handy was held in prison for 15 months without a hearing. Handy kept a detailed daily diary and smuggled it out of prison to be re-published as "United States Bonds; or Duress by Federal Authority: A Journal of Current Events During an Imprisonment of Fifteen Months, at Fort Delaware" and later republished as Prisoner of Conscience. It is an acclaimed historical record of Civil War prisons and soldier and civilian prisoners.

Handys tenure in Orange was only five years when he left to become Pastor at a Presbyterian Church in August County, VA. There have been three owners of Old Manse since Rev. Dr. Handy and it has been in the current family for nearly 70 years.