Dollar General, which has two locations in Madison Heights, is building a new, 9,000-square-foot location at 4689 South Amherst Highway near the Seminole Square Shopping Center. The discount retailer has not set an opening date for the new store. The existing Dollar general store at 115 Seminole Drive will close after the new location opens, the company said in a release. But Madison Heights’ newest retailer will have a connection to Amherst County history in its backyard. Land clearing for construction has raised an intriguing question for passers-by: What is the old house at the rear of the property? The old house was known as the Duckbill Farm, otherwise known as the Tyler house. The now-dilapidated house still stands and dates to 1825, according to a partial history compiled by Royall Holt Tyler and on file at the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society museum. The property was subdivided, and the older house is not on the same plat at the new store, said Jeremy Bryant, Amherst County’s planning and zoning director. Nor is it on the National Register of Historic Places or on the Virginia landmarks register, said Holly Mills, director of the Amherst County Museum and Historical Society. “Sweet Briar is the only historic district in the county,” Mills said. No restrictions exist that would otherwise protect the Duckbill Farm building, unless a conservation easement were filed, she said. It stands on what was an original tract of 680 acres patented from King George III by Charles Clark on Feb. 15, 1761. The bricks for the existing house were made from red clay in the field there. The original porch had round brick columns. The house was bought and sold several times, and other houses likely stood on the property. James Slaughter sold it to the Tyler family on Aug. 26, 1885. Tyler family heirs owned the house and surrounding 250 acres for generations, until at least the 1960s. The brick house consisted of six rooms in three stories, with front and back porches. Later, someone built on two frame rooms and later, four more frame rooms were added in the back. The house had nine fireplaces –– one had two flues, and two more flues were upstairs. Hundreds of historically significant buildings dot Amherst County, with about 300 on the National historic registry.

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