Hope Park Mansion
102-482: Hope Park Mill/Miller's House Hope Park was an 18th and 19th-century plantation in Fairfax County, Virginia , where Dr. David Stuart (1753–1814), an old friend of and correspondent with George Washington lived with his wife, (Washington's former stepdaughter-in-law) Eleanor Calvert Custis (1758–1811), and family. It was approximately 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Fairfax Court House (now known as
204-579: A King's Counsel that year. In 1798, he was made a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London . He had begun his political career as a Whig , but, like many others, he saw in the French Revolution a reason for changing sides, and became a supporter of Pitt . On the formation of the Addington ministry in 1801, he was appointed Attorney General and shortly afterwards was returned to
306-416: A butter churn . Once firm enough to separate out, but soft enough to stick together, the butter was taken out of the churn, washed in very cold water, and salted. The churning process also produced buttermilk as a by-product. It was the remaining liquid after the butter was removed from the churn. All of the products of this process would have been stored in the spring house or ice house . The smokehouse
408-406: A courtyard to the rear of the main house known as the kitchen yard. They included a cookhouse (separate kitchen building), pantry , washhouse ( laundry ), smokehouse , chicken house , spring house or ice house , milkhouse ( dairy ), covered well , and cistern . The privies would have been located some distance away from the plantation house and kitchen yard. The cookhouse or kitchen
510-451: A primer , and a hornbook . As the children grew older their schooling began to prepare them for their adult roles on the plantation. Boys studied academic subjects, proper social etiquette , and plantation management, while girls learned art , music , French , and the domestic skills suited to the mistress of a plantation. Most plantation owners maintained an office for keeping records, transacting business, writing correspondence, and
612-556: A vacuum pan , where it was boiled until the sugar in the syrup was crystallized. The crystallized sugar was then cooled and separated from any remaining molasses in a process known as purging. The final step was packing the sugar into hogshead barrels for transport to market. Cotton plantations, the most common type of plantation in the South prior to the Civil War, were the last type of plantation to fully develop. Cotton production
714-635: A building raised roughly a story off of the ground on posts, was used to separate the lighter chaff and dust from the rice. Sugar plantations were most commonly found in Louisiana. In fact, Louisiana produced almost all of the sugar grown in the United States during the prewar period. From one-quarter to one-half of all sugar consumed in the United States came from Louisiana sugar plantations. Plantations grew sugarcane from Louisiana's colonial era onward, but large scale production did not begin until
816-527: A corrugated wash board until clean. By the 1850s, they would have been passed through a mangle . Prior to that time, wringing out the items was done by hand. The items would then be ready to be hung out to dry or, in inclement weather, placed on a drying rack . Ironing would have been done with a metal flat iron , often heated in the fireplace, and various other devices. The milkhouse would have been used by enslaved people to make milk into cream , butter , and buttermilk . The process started with separating
918-452: A flat surface of still lower land, with a silver thread of water curling through it, extended, Holland-like, to the horizon. Usually at as great a distance as a quarter of a mile from the road, and from a half mile to a mile apart, were the residences of the planters – large white houses, with groves of evergreen trees about them; and between these and the road were little villages of slave-cabins ... The cottages were framed buildings, boarded on
1020-422: A judge, his decisions displayed profound legal knowledge, and in mercantile law especially were reckoned of high authority. He was harsh and overbearing to counsel, and in the political trials which were so frequent in his time, such as that of Lord Cochrane for Stock Exchange fraud in 1814, showed an unmistakable bias against the accused. In the trial of William Hone for blasphemy in 1817, Ellenborough directed
1122-430: A largely agrarian to an industrial society , plantations and their building complexes became obsolete. Although the majority have been destroyed, the most common structures to have survived are the plantation houses . As is true of buildings in general, the more substantially built and architecturally interesting buildings have tended to be the ones that survived into the modern age and are better documented than many of
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#17328023050971224-547: A log smokehouse , spring house , and cabin , are preserved. Hope Park's mill and adjacent ancillary buildings were listed as "Hope Park Mill and Miller's House" on the Virginia Landmarks Register on November 16, 1976, and on the National Register of Historic Places on August 15, 1977. Hope Park Mill and Miller's House are located at 12124 Pope's Head Road, Fairfax, Virginia. At the time of
1326-410: A main house on site. Just as vital and arguably more important to the complex were the many structures built for the processing and storage of crops, food preparation and storage, sheltering equipment and animals, and various other domestic and agricultural purposes. The value of the plantation came from its land and the enslaved people who toiled on it to produce crops for sale. These same people produced
1428-623: A man may fairly adopt part of the work of another for the promotion of science.....one must not put manacles on science" was extremely influential in developing the doctrine of fair use . He resigned his judicial office in November 1818, and died shortly after. Lord Ellenborough married, on 17 October 1789, Ann Towry (1769–1843), the daughter of George Phillips Towry of Foliejon Park at Winkfield in Berkshire and his wife, Elizabeth. They had five sons and five daughters who survived infancy: He
1530-452: A miller and his wife, Mary Fox Barnes, received the mill and miller's house, which they occupied and called "Huntley." The remaining six children received other Hope Park plantation parcels. While Hope Park plantation prospered under the Barnes family, so its slave population grew. In the 1840s, the Barnes family owned four slaves, seven in 1850, and 12 in 1860. The number of slaves owned by
1632-548: A more accurate image of what life was like for slaves and slave owners", The Washington Post wrote in 2019. Hannah Knowles in The Washington Post wrote, "The changes have begun to draw people long alienated by the sites' whitewashing of the past and to satisfy what staff call a hunger for real history, as plantations add slavery-focused tours, rebuild cabins and reconstruct the lives of the enslaved with help from their descendants." However, some white visitors to
1734-592: A neighborhood mill, serving several nearby plantations in central Fairfax County. The bulk of the Hope Park plantation property remained in Dr. Stuart's estate until December 1837 when John H. Barnes, Sr. purchased a 1,000-acre tract which included the mill and miller's house, but not the main Hope Park dwelling. Barnes purchased the main house and rest of the Hope Park plantation in February 1838. Barnes Sr.'s family became
1836-557: A new address then when the old farm lane from Popes Head Road to the mansion house was named to accommodate the development. Plantations in the American South Plantation complexes were common on agricultural plantations in the Southern United States from the 17th into the 20th century. The complex included everything from the main residence down to the pens for livestock . Until
1938-460: A place for the hired tutor or governess to educate the planter's children, and sometimes even those of other planters in the area. On most plantations, however, a room in the main house was sufficient for schooling, rather than a separate dedicated building. Paper was precious, so the children often recited their lessons until they memorized them. The usual texts in the beginning were the Bible ,
2040-422: A plantation is that it typically had 500 to 1,000 acres (2.0 to 4.0 km ) or more of land and produced one or two cash crops for sale. Other scholars have attempted to define it by the number of enslaved persons. The vast majority of plantations did not have grand mansions centered on a huge acreage. These large estates did exist, but represented only a small percentage of the plantations that once existed in
2142-406: A second mill and was constructed on the west bank of Piney Branch, as well as an adjacent miller 's house. Their precise dates of construction remain unknown, but in a sale notice in 1815 (a year after Dr. Stuart's death) it was advertised as being "in complete repair". Preservationist Russell Wright studied the mill in 1972 and believed it built circa 1800. Then known as "Hope Park Mill," it became
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#17328023050972244-451: A special pleader under the bar, he was called to the bar in 1780. He chose the northern circuit, and in a very short time obtained a lucrative practice and a high reputation. In 1787 he was appointed principal counsel for Warren Hastings in the celebrated impeachment trial before the House of Lords , and the ability with which he conducted the defence was universally recognised. He was made
2346-408: A strainer to be collected into a tank. From there the juice went through a process that removed impurities from the liquid and thickened it through evaporation. It was steam-heated in vats where additional impurities were removed by adding lime to the syrup and then the mixture was strained. At this point the liquid had been transformed into molasses . It was then placed into a closed vessel known as
2448-800: A trustee of a school in Centreville. While two Custis siblings, Eleanor Parke Custis and George Washington Parke Custis , lived at Mount Vernon , Philadelphia , and New York City , with George and Martha Washington, they also visited their mother at Hope Park. Dr. Stuart handled the financial accounts of his stepchildren, and also raised his stepdaughters (President George Washington's step-granddaughters) Martha Parke Custis and Elizabeth Parke Custis , who both married at Hope Park. Martha Custis married Thomas Peter on January 6, 1795, and Elizabeth Custis married Thomas Law on March 20, 1796. These elder Custis daughters moved to Hope Park and lived there with their mother, stepfather and many half-siblings. Peters
2550-526: A village-like grouping along an avenue away from the main house, but sometimes were scattered around the plantation on the edges of the fields where the enslaved people toiled, like most of the sharecropper cabins that were to come later. Houses for enslaved people were often of the most basic construction. Meant for little more than sleeping, they were usually rough log or frame one-room cabins; early examples often had chimneys made of clay and sticks. Hall and parlor houses (two rooms) were also represented on
2652-550: A visit to plantations along the Georgia coast in 1855: In the afternoon, I left the main road, and, towards night, reached a much more cultivated district. The forest of pines extended uninterruptedly on one side of the way, but on the other was a continued succession of very large fields, or rich dark soil – evidently reclaimed swamp-land – which had been cultivated the previous year, in Sea Island cotton, or maize. Beyond them,
2754-426: A white elite . Today, as was also true in the past, there is a wide range of opinion as to what differentiated a plantation from a farm . Typically, the focus of a farm was subsistence agriculture . In contrast, the primary focus of a plantation was the production of cash crops , with enough staple food crops produced to feed the population of the estate and the livestock. A common definition of what constituted
2856-555: The Episcopal denomination. Early records indicate that at Faunsdale Plantation the mistress of the estate, Louisa Harrison, gave regular instruction to her slaves by reading the services of the church and teaching the Episcopal catechism to their children. Following the death of her first husband, she had a large Carpenter Gothic church built, St. Michael's Church. She latter remarried to Rev. William A. Stickney, who served as
2958-642: The House of Commons as Member of Parliament for Newtown in the Isle of Wight . He was knighted in the same year. In 1802 he succeeded Lord Kenyon as Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench . On being raised to the bench he was created Baron Ellenborough , of Ellenborough , in the County in Cumberland, taken from the village where his maternal ancestors had long held a small patrimony. In 1803, he presided over
3060-558: The South Carolina Lowcountry . Until the 19th century, rice was threshed from the stalks and the husk was pounded from the grain by hand, a very labor-intensive endeavor. Steam-powered rice pounding mills had become common by the 1830s. They were used to thresh the grain from the inedible chaff . A separate chimney, required for the fires powering the steam engine, was adjacent to the pounding mill and often connected by an underground system. The winnowing barn ,
3162-629: The independent city of Fairfax ). The Hope Park plantation was founded in the 1750s by Edward Payne, a justice of the Fairfax County Court from 1764 to 1785 and builder of Payne's Church (completed in 1778). Payne served with George Washington and George Mason on the Truro Parish vestry, and Washington occasionally visited the Paynes at Hope Park. Payne constructed a small grist mill, probably on Piney Branch which ran through
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3264-671: The "Fairfax Rifles." Two months later, Jack Barnes was captured and sent to the Old Capitol Prison in Washington, D.C. (the first of his three Federal incarcerations). Barnes' widow Sarah, her four daughters, Jack Barnes' wife Mary, and their children and slaves evacuated both Hope Park and Huntley early in the conflict. They returned following the Confederate victory at the First Battle of Bull Run , finding both
3366-537: The "great house" and extended family. Novels, often adapted into films , presented a romantic , sanitized view of plantation life and ignored or glorified white supremacy . The most popular of these were The Birth of a Nation (1916), based on Thomas Dixon Jr. ,'s best-selling novel The Clansman (1905), and Gone with the Wind (1939), based on the best-selling novel of the same name (1936) by Margaret Mitchell . On larger plantations an overseer represented
3468-401: The 1810s and 1820s. A successful sugar plantation required a skilled retinue of hired labor and enslaved people. The most specialized structure on a sugar plantation was the sugar mill (sugar house), where, by the 1830s, the steam-powered mill crushed the sugarcane stalks between rollers. This squeezed the juice from the stalks and the cane juice would run out the bottom of the mill through
3570-425: The Barnes family was relatively low in comparison to the slave workforces at neighboring Fairfax County plantations, perhaps because Barnes' sons also worked on the plantation. In June 1861, following Virginia's Secession Convention and affirmatory vote, John Barnes's three sons, including Jack (then 29 years old), traveled to Fairfax Court House and enlisted in the 17th Virginia Volunteer Infantry Regiment , known as
3672-690: The Civil War: Struggles for the Meaning of Freedom , suggests that the minimum requirement for planter status was twenty people enslaved, especially since a Southern planter could exempt Confederate duty for one white male per twenty people owned. In his study of Black Belt counties in Alabama, Jonathan Weiner defines planters by ownership of real property, rather than of slaves. A planter, for Weiner, owned at least $ 10,000 worth of real estate in 1850 and $ 32,000 worth in 1860, equivalent to about
3774-634: The Episcopal minister of St. Michael's and was later appointed by Bishop Richard Wilmer as a "Missionary to the Negroes," after which Louisa joined him as an unofficial fellow minister among the African Americans of the Black Belt . Most plantation churches were of wood-frame construction, although some were built in brick, often stuccoed . Early examples tended towards the vernacular or neoclassicism, but later examples were almost always in
3876-987: The Gothic Revival style. A few rivaled those built by southern town congregations. Two of the most elaborate extant examples in the Deep South are the Chapel of the Cross at Annandale Plantation and St. Mary's Chapel at Laurel Hill Plantation , both Episcopalian structures in Mississippi. In both cases the original plantation houses have been destroyed, but the quality and design of the churches can give some insight into how elaborate some plantation complexes and their buildings could be. St. Mary Chapel, in Natchez, dates to 1839, built in stuccoed brick with large Gothic and Tudor arch windows, hood mouldings over
3978-598: The Hope Park and Huntley residences still standing, but obviously vandalized, presumably by Union soldiers. During the winter of 1861/1862, Confederate troops used Hope Park Mill as Post No. 3. Confederate forces vacated the Hope Park Mill in March 1862, as Union Army troops advanced into western Fairfax County to conduct foraging and resupply operations against civilians. Union soldiers confiscated everything they could carry, including vegetables and pigs . One of
4080-565: The Hope Park property. A mill would have been an important adjunct to the plantation. In 1783, Stuart married Eleanor Calvert Custis , the young widow of John Parke Custis and thus daughter-in-law of Martha Washington and stepdaughter-in-law of George Washington . Until relocating to Hope Park sometime between 1791 and 1793, the couple resided at Custis's Abingdon plantation overlooking the Potomac River. Estates along major waterways found transport and communication easier than those in
4182-575: The Mattinglys, the Flints, and the Warhursts. The Hope Park mansion house, as it has evolved over the years, remains in use as a private residence and shares a seven-acre lot with a grand modern home about a mile from the mill and miller's house. Until 1976 when the remaining 82-acre Hope Park "Mansion House Tract" was subdivided, the address of the mansion house was 11807 Pope's Head Road. It obtained
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4284-444: The South. Although many Southern farmers did enslave people before emancipation in 1862, few enslaved more than five. These farmers tended to work the fields alongside the people they enslaved. Of the estimated 46,200 plantations existing in 1860, 20,700 had 20 to 30 enslaved people and 2,300 had a workforce of a hundred or more, with the rest somewhere in between. Many plantations were operated by absentee-landowners and never had
4386-677: The Stuart and Washington families, Hope Park is mentioned frequently in Washington's correspondences and diaries. Dr. David Stuart purchased Hope Park plantation in 1785, two years after marrying General Washington's widowed daughter-in-law described below. Stuart was an Alexandria physician and planter who served several terms (part-time) as one of Fairfax County's representatives in the Virginia House of Delegates . On January 22, 1791, then President Washington appointed Dr. Stuart as
4488-753: The abolition of slavery , such plantations were generally self-sufficient settlements that relied on the forced labor of enslaved people. Plantations are an important aspect of the history of the Southern United States , particularly before the American Civil War . The mild temperate climate , plentiful rainfall, and fertile soils of the Southeastern United States allowed the flourishing of large plantations, where large numbers of enslaved Africans were held captive and forced to produce crops to create wealth for
4590-618: The bale was secured with twine. An individual who owned a plantation was known as a planter . Historians of the prewar South have generally defined "planter" most precisely as a person owning property (real estate) and keeping 20 or more people enslaved . In the " Black Belt " counties of Alabama and Mississippi , the terms "planter" and "farmer" were often synonymous. The historians Robert Fogel and Stanley Engerman define large planters as those who enslaved over 50 people, and medium planters as those who enslaved between 16 and 50 people. Historian David Williams, in A People's History of
4692-426: The built environment: the main house for the plantation owner, the slave cabins , barns, and other structures of the complex. The materials for a plantation's buildings, for the most part, came from the lands of the estate. Lumber was obtained from the forested areas of the property. Depending on its intended use, it was either split, hewn , or sawn. Bricks were most often produced onsite from sand and clay that
4794-611: The complex's listings in 1976 and 1977, the property was owned by Sally and David McGrath who also lived in the Miller's House. In 1980, Fairfax County created the Robey's Mill Historic Overlay District (HOD). The Hope Park mansion house and the mill were photographed by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in the 1930s. Detailed measured drawings of the mansion house were made in the 1930s, and of
4896-590: The confiscated pigs belonged to ten-year-old Nettie (Jack and Mary Barnes' daughter), who according to the Barnes family story, objected vociferously. Charles V. Mauro's The Civil War in Fairfax County: Civilians and Soldiers described its recovery: Nettie carried on so that mama finally told one of the slaves to take her over to the camp and see if the Union soldiers wouldn't give the pet pig back. The two were met by sentries , who took Nettie and
4998-417: The cookhouse or a storehouse and would have secured items such as barrels of salt , sugar , flour , cornmeal and the like. The washhouse is where clothes, tablecloths, and bed-covers were cleaned and ironed. It also sometimes had living quarters for the laundrywoman . Cleaning laundry in this period was labor-intensive for the domestic slaves that performed it. It required various gadgets to accomplish
5100-463: The crop. Tobacco plantations were most common in certain parts of Georgia, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, and Virginia. The first agricultural plantations in Virginia were founded on the growing of tobacco. Tobacco production on plantations was very labor-intensive. It required the entire year to gather seeds, start them growing in cold frames , and then transplant
5202-573: The doors and windows, buttresses , a crenelated roof-line, and a small Gothic spire crowning the whole. Although construction records are very sketchy, the Chapel of the Cross, built from 1850 to 1852 near Madison, may be attributable to Frank Wills or Richard Upjohn , both of whom designed almost identical churches in the North during the same time period that the Chapel of the Cross was built. Another secondary structure on many plantations during
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#17328023050975304-428: The fields. A few enslavers went further in providing housing for the household servants. When Waldwic in Alabama was remodeled in the Gothic Revival style in the 1852, the enslaved people serving the household were provided with larger accommodations that matched the architecture of the main house. This model, however, was exceedingly rare. Famous landscape designer Frederick Law Olmsted had this recollection of
5406-403: The financial panics of 1819 and 1837, when demand by British mills for cotton dropped, many small planters went bankrupt and their land and slaves were bought by larger plantations. As cotton-producing estates grew in size, so did the number of slaveholders and the average number of enslaved people held. A cotton plantation normally had a cotton gin house, where the cotton gin was used to remove
5508-434: The first known occupants of the miller's house, and later moved into the main house . After Barnes Sr. died, Hope Park plantation was broken into eight inheritance properties. His widow, Sarah Barnes, received the main Hope Park dwelling house with 194 acres which was referred to as the "Mansion House Tract." When the estate was settled in 1853, Barnes' eldest son Jack Barnes (i.e., John H. Barnes, Jr.) who had been trained as
5610-719: The food staples and equipment that they relied on for their existence. This type of debt bondage , for blacks and poor whites, led to a populist movement in the late 19th century that began to bring blacks and whites together for a common cause. This early populist movement is largely credited with helping to cause state governments in the South, mostly controlled by the planter elite, to enact various laws that disenfranchised poor whites and blacks, through grandfather clauses , literacy tests , poll taxes , and various other laws. The agricultural structures on plantations had some basic structures in common and others that varied widely. They depended on what crops and animals were raised on
5712-427: The form of monumental towers set near the main house. The pigeons were raised to be eaten as a delicacy and their droppings were used as fertilizer. Few functions could take place on a plantation without a reliable water supply. Every plantation had at least one, and sometimes several, wells . These were usually roofed and often partially enclosed by latticework to exclude animals. Since the well water in many areas
5814-401: The formation of Lord Grenville's ministry " of all the talents ", Lord Ellenborough declined the offer of the office of Lord Chancellor , but accepted a seat in the cabinet. His doing so while he retained the chief justiceship was much criticised at the time, and, though not without precedent, was open to such obvious objections on constitutional grounds that the experiment was never repeated. As
5916-503: The former Hermitage Plantation in Georgia and Boone Hall in South Carolina, even those who worked in the fields were provided with brick cabins. More fortunate in their accommodations were those who served in the enslavers' houses or were skilled laborers. They usually resided either in a part of the main house or in their own houses, which were normally more comfortable dwellings than those of their counterparts who worked in
6018-455: The height of the sharecropping -era was the plantation store or commissary. Although some prewar plantations had a commissary that distributed food and supplies to enslaved people, the plantation store was essentially a postwar addition to the plantation complex. In addition to the share of their crop already owed to the plantation owner for the use of his or her land, tenants and sharecroppers purchased, usually on credit against their next crop,
6120-544: The interior of Fairfax County such as Hope Park, so the Stuarts initially lived at Custis' Abington plantation on the Potomac River on the grounds of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport , before moving to Hope Park. The Stuarts regularly received George and Martha Washington as guests at Abingdon as well as at Hope Park plantation, and were frequent guests at Mount Vernon. Because of the close relationship between
6222-565: The jury to find a verdict of guilty, and their acquittal of the prisoner is generally said to have hastened his death. On the other hand, his humane and enlightened judgment in R. v. Inhabitants of Eastbourne that destitute French refugees in England have a fundamental human right to be given sufficient means to enable them to live, has been much praised and frequently followed. In the field of copyright , his judgment in Cary v Kearsley that "
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#17328023050976324-498: The like. Although it, like the schoolroom, was most often within the main house or another structure, it was not at all rare for a complex to have a separate plantation office. John C. Calhoun used his plantation office at his Fort Hill plantation in Clemson, South Carolina as a private sanctuary of sorts, with it utilized as both study and library during his twenty-five year residency. Another structure found on some estates
6426-399: The main house, at least partially due to his social position. It was also part of an effort to keep the enslaved people compliant and prevent the beginnings of a slave rebellion, a very real fear in the minds of most plantation owners. Economic studies indicate that fewer than 30 percent of planters employed white supervisors for their slave labor. Some planters appointed a trusted slave as
6528-442: The meat could also be stored there until it was consumed. The chicken house was a building where chickens were kept. Its design could vary, depending on whether the chickens were kept for egg production, meat, or both. If for eggs, there were often nest boxes for egg laying and perches on which the birds to sleep. Eggs were collected daily. Some plantations also had pigeonniers ( dovecotes ) that, in Louisiana, sometimes took
6630-504: The member representing Virginia on the first board of Commissioners of the Federal City, and he served for almost four years. By 1789, Stuart was one of the gentleman justices for the Fairfax County Court, normally a lifetime appointment. The Virginia General Assembly named Stuart a trustee by for the towns of Centreville in 1792 and Providence, later known as Fairfax Court House, and then Fairfax , in 1805, and he also served as
6732-417: The milk into skim milk and cream. It was done by pouring the whole milk into a container and allowing the cream to naturally rise to the top. This was collected into another container daily until several gallons had accumulated. During this time the cream would sour slightly through naturally occurring bacteria. This increased the efficiency of the churning to come. Churning was an arduous task performed with
6834-575: The mill in the 1970s; all can be viewed on the Library of Congress website. A plaque from the U.S. Department of the Interior commemorating this activity sits in the mansion house. As of the time of this article's composition and subsequent to the Barnes' tenure, ownership of the Hope Park mansion house (and its fluctuating acreages due to sales or inheritances) has been held by, the Newmans, Zimmerman,
6936-424: The most common and distinctive features of the plantation landscape, has largely disappeared in much of the South. Many of the structures were insubstantial to begin with. Only the better-built examples tended to survive, and then usually only if they were put to other uses after emancipation. The quarters could be next to the main house, well away from it, or both. On large plantations they were often arranged in
7038-728: The museum houses presented an idyllic, dignified " lost cause " vision of the antebellum South . Recently, and to different degrees, some have begun to acknowledge the "horrors of slavery" which made that life possible. In late 2019, after contact initiated by Color of Change , "five major websites often used for wedding planning have pledged to cut back on promoting and romanticizing weddings at former slave plantations". The New York Times , earlier in 2019, "decided...to exclude couples who were being married on plantations from wedding announcements and other wedding coverage". "Many plantations, including George Washington 's Mount Vernon and Thomas Jefferson 's Monticello , are working to present
7140-405: The outside, with shingle roofs and brick chimneys; they stood fifty feet apart, with gardens and pig-yards ... At the head of the settlement, in a garden looking down the street, was an overseer's house, and here the road divided, running each way at right angles; on one side to barns and a landing on the river, on the other toward the mansion ... A crucial residential structure on larger plantations
7242-504: The overseer, and in Louisiana free black overseers were also used. Another residential structure largely unique to plantation complexes was the garconnière or bachelors' quarters. Mostly built by Louisiana Creole people , but occasionally found in other parts of the Deep South formerly under the dominion of New France , they were structures that housed the adolescent or unmarried sons of plantation owners. At some plantations it
7344-461: The pig post-haste. The soldier saluted, got the pig and carried it back to our home, with Nettie and the servant trudging along beside him. The mill at Hope Park prospered again around the turn of the 20th century under the ownership of Frank Robey. Hope Park Mill's commercial production ended when Robey died in 1916 brought an end to . Hope Park Mill and Miller's House (sometimes known collectively as "Robey's Mill" or "Piney Branch Mill"), along with
7446-406: The plantation landscape, offering a separate room for eating and sleeping. Sometimes dormitories and two-story dwellings were also used to house enslaved people. Earlier examples rested on the ground with a dirt floor, but later examples were usually raised on piers for ventilation. Most of these represent the dwellings constructed for enslaved people who worked in the fields. Rarely though, such as at
7548-732: The plantation, used to house both horses and mules . These were usually separate, one for each type of animal. The mule stable was the most important on the vast majority of estates, since the mules did most of the work, pulling the plows and carts . Barns not involved in animal husbandry were most commonly the crib barn ( corn cribs or other types of granaries ), storage barns, or processing barns. Crib barns were typically built of unchinked logs , although they were sometimes covered with vertical wood siding. Storage barns often housed unprocessed crops or those awaiting consumption or transport to market. Processing barns were specialized structures that were necessary for helping to actually process
7650-599: The plantation. Common crops included corn , upland cotton , sea island cotton , rice , sugarcane , and tobacco . Besides those mentioned earlier, cattle , ducks , goats , hogs , and sheep were raised for their derived products and/or meat. All estates would have possessed various types of animal pens, stables , and a variety of barns . Many plantations utilized a number of specialized structures that were crop-specific and only found on that type of plantation. Plantation barns can be classified by function , depending on what type of crop and livestock were raised. In
7752-529: The plantations have pushed back against hearing about slavery. Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough , PC , FSA (16 November 1750 – 13 December 1818), was an English judge. After serving as a member of parliament and Attorney General , he became Lord Chief Justice . Law was born at Great Salkeld , in Cumberland , of which place his father, Edmund Law (1703–1787), afterwards Bishop of Carlisle ,
7854-602: The planter in matters of daily management. Usually perceived as uncouth, ill-educated, and low-class, he had the often despised task of meting out punishments in order to keep up discipline and secure the profit of his employer. Southern plantations depended upon slaves to do the agricultural work. "Honestly, 'plantation' and 'slavery' is one and the same," said an employee of the Whitney Plantation in 2019. Many manor houses survive, and in some cases former slave dwellings have been rebuilt or renovated. To pay for
7956-427: The plants to the fields once the soil had warmed. Then the enslaved people had to weed the fields all summer and remove the flowers from the tobacco plants in order to force more energy into the leaves. Harvesting was done by plucking individual leaves over several weeks as they ripened, or cutting entire tobacco plants and hanging them in vented tobacco barns to dry, called curing . Rice plantations were common in
8058-737: The postwar South. For example, James Battle Avirett , who grew up on the Avirett-Stephens Plantation in Onslow County, North Carolina , and served as an Episcopal chaplain in the Confederate States Army , published The Old Plantation: How We Lived in Great House and Cabin before the War in 1901. Such memoirs often included descriptions of Christmas as the epitome of anti-modern order exemplified by
8160-444: The seeds from raw cotton. After ginning, the cotton had to be baled before it could be warehoused and transported to market. This was accomplished with a cotton press, an early type of baler that was usually powered by two mules walking in a circle with each attached to an overhead arm that turned a huge wooden screw. The downward action of this screw compressed the processed cotton into a uniform bale-shaped wooden enclosure, where
8262-413: The separation was to prevent the noise and smells of cooking activities from reaching the main house. Sometimes the cookhouse contained two rooms, one for the actual kitchen and the other to serve as the residence for the cook. Still other arrangements had the kitchen in one room, a laundry in the other, and a second story for servant quarters. The pantry could be in its own structure or in a cool part of
8364-408: The servant before the commander. Nettie, between sobs, told about the theft of her pig and pleaded for its return. The Yankee officer asked Nettie if she could point out the soldier who had taken her pig. She said she could. So the officer lined up the raiding company up in front of Nettie and she quickly picked out the guilty one. The officer didn't order the man shot, but he did order him to return
8466-401: The smaller and simpler ones. Several plantation homes of important persons, including Mount Vernon , Monticello , and The Hermitage have also been preserved. Less common are intact examples of slave housing. The rarest survivors of all are the agricultural and lesser domestic structures, especially those dating from the pre-Civil War era. Housing for enslaved people, although once one of
8568-417: The task. The wash boiler was a cast iron or copper cauldron in which clothes or other fabrics and soapy water were heated over an open fire. The wash-stick was a wooden stick with a handle at its uppermost part and four to five prongs at its base. It was simultaneously pounded up and down and rotated in the washing tub to aerate the wash solution and loosen any dirt. The items would then be vigorously rubbed on
8670-483: The term dependency can be applied to these buildings. A few were common, such as the carriage house and blacksmith shop; but most varied widely among plantations and were largely a function of what the planter wanted, needed, or could afford to add to the complex. These buildings might include schoolhouses , offices , churches , commissary stores , gristmills , and sawmills . Found on some plantations in every Southern state, plantation schoolhouses served as
8772-754: The top eight percent of landowners. In his study of southwest Georgia, Lee Formwalt defines planters in terms of size of land holdings rather than in terms of numbers of people enslaved. Formwalt's planters are in the top 4.5% of landowners, translating into real estate worth $ 6,000 or more in 1850, $ 24,000 or more in 1860, and $ 11,000 or more in 1870. In his study of Harrison County, Texas , Randolph B. Campbell classifies large planters as owners of 20 people, and small planters as owners of between 10 and 19 people. In Chicot and Phillips Counties, Arkansas, Carl H. Moneyhon defines large planters as owners of 20 or more people, and of 600 acres (240 ha) or more. Many nostalgic memoirs about plantation life were published in
8874-490: The treason trial of Colonel Edward Despard . In denying the jury's motion for clemency (following the character witness of Vice-Admiral Nelson ) Lord Ellenborough emphasised the revolutionary nature of Despard's purpose. It was, he claimed, not only to rend the new union between Great Britain and Ireland , but also to affect "the forcible reduction to one common level of all the advantages of property, of all civil and political rights whatsoever". Later that same year, 1803, he
8976-671: The upkeep, some, like the Monmouth Plantation in Natchez, Mississippi and the Lipscomb Plantation in Durham, North Carolina , have become small luxury hotels or bed and breakfasts . Not only Monticello and Mount Vernon but some 375 former plantation houses are museums that can be visited. There are examples in every Southern state. Centers of plantation life such as Natchez run plantation tours. Traditionally
9078-527: The upper South, like their counterparts in the North , barns had to provide basic shelter for the animals and storage of fodder . Unlike the upper regions, most plantations in the lower South did not have to provide substantial shelter to their animals during the winter. Animals were often kept in fattening pens with a simple shed for shelter, with the main barn or barns being utilized for crop storage or processing only. Stables were an essential type of barn on
9180-399: Was molded , dried, and then fired in a kiln . If a suitable stone was available, it was used. Tabby was often used on the southern Sea Islands . Few plantation structures have survived into the modern era, with the vast majority destroyed through natural disaster , neglect, or fire over the centuries. With the collapse of the plantation economy and subsequent Southern transition from
9282-475: Was a free-standing structure and at others it was attached to the main house by side-wings. It developed from the Acadian tradition of using the loft of the house as a bedroom for young men. A variety of domestic and lesser agricultural structures surrounded the main house on all plantations. Most plantations possessed some, if not all, of these outbuildings , often called dependencies, commonly arranged around
9384-456: Was a plantation chapel or church. These were built for a variety of reasons. In many cases the planter built a church or chapel for the use of the plantation slaves, although they usually recruited a white minister to conduct the services. Some were built to exclusively serve the plantation family, but many more were built to serve the family and others in the area who shared the same faith. This seems to be especially true with planters within
9486-402: Was a very labor-intensive crop to harvest, with the fibers having to be hand-picked from the bolls . This was coupled with the equally laborious removal of seeds from fiber by hand. Following the invention of the cotton gin , cotton plantations sprang up all over the South and cotton production soared, along with the expansion of slavery. Cotton also caused plantations to grow in size. During
9588-428: Was almost always in a separate building in the South until modern times, sometimes connected to the main house by a covered walkway. This separation was partially due to the cooking fire generating heat all day long in an already hot and humid climate. It also reduced the risk of fire. Indeed, on many plantations the cookhouse was built of brick while when the main house was of wood-frame construction. Another reason for
9690-430: Was an overseer's house. The overseer was largely responsible for the success or failure of an estate, making sure that quotas were met and sometimes meting out punishment for infractions by the enslaved. The overseer was responsible for healthcare, with enslaved people and slave houses inspected routinely. He was also the record keeper of most crop inventories and held the keys to various storehouses. The overseer's house
9792-733: Was appointed to the Privy Council of the United Kingdom . In 1803, he introduced a bill to Parliament which went on to become the Malicious Shooting or Stabbing Act 1803 (often referred to as Lord Ellenborough's Act ) which clarified the law on abortion in England and Ireland. In 1806, on the death of William Pitt the Younger , Lord Ellenborough served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for two weeks ad interim . On
9894-522: Was at the time rector. His mother was Mary Christian, daughter of John Christan of Ewanrigg , Cumberland. Educated at the Charterhouse and at Peterhouse, Cambridge , he passed as third wrangler , and was soon afterwards elected to a fellowship at Trinity . In spite of his father's strong wish that he should take holy orders , he chose the legal profession, and on quitting the university was entered at Lincoln's Inn . After spending five years as
9996-450: Was distasteful due to mineral content, the potable water on many plantations came from cisterns that were supplied with rainwater by a pipe from a rooftop catchment. These could be huge aboveground wooden barrels capped by metal domes, such as was often seen in Louisiana and coastal areas of Mississippi, or underground brick masonry domes or vaults, common in other areas. Some structures on plantations provided subsidiary functions; again,
10098-499: Was succeeded as second baron by his eldest son, Edward, later the Earl of Ellenborough; another son, Charles, was Recorder of London and Member of Parliament for Cambridge University UK 1835 until his death. Three of Ellenborough's brothers attained some degree of fame. These were John Law (1745–1810), Bishop of Elphin ; Thomas Law (1759–1834), who settled in the United States in 1793, and married, as his second wife, Eliza Custis,
10200-443: Was the son of a successful Georgetown merchant, and Law was the son of Edmund Law , Bishop of Carlisle , and the younger brother of Edward Law, 1st Baron Ellenborough , George Henry Law , later Bishop of Bath and Wells , and John Law , a Church of Ireland bishop. The Custis/Law union was a short one and ended in divorce in 1806. Most likely under Stuart's ownership and before the Stuart family relocated to Ossian Hall in 1804,
10302-430: Was usually a modest dwelling, not far from the cabins of the enslaved workers. The overseer and his family, even when white and southern, did not freely mingle with the planter and his family. They were in a different social stratum than that of the owner and were expected to know their place. In village-type slave quarters on plantations with overseers, his house was usually at the head of the slave village rather than near
10404-405: Was utilized to preserve meat, usually pork , beef , and mutton . It was commonly built of hewn logs or brick. Following the slaughter in the fall or early winter, salt and sugar were applied to the meat at the beginning of the curing process, and then the meat was slowly dried and smoked in the smokehouse by a fire that did not add any heat to the smokehouse itself. If it was cool enough,
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