The Glenblythe Plantation is a former plantation in Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas. Before the American Civil War, it was cultivated with slave labor. The plantation home is no longer standing, however in 1967, a historical marker was installed where it used to stand, as a reminder of a bygone era. [1]
It was established in 1859 by Thomas Affleck (1812–1868), a Scottish immigrant, nurseryman, agrarian writer and planter, who also had property in Washington, Mississippi. [1] [2] The Glenblythe Plantation was located in what is now the ghost town of Gay Hill near Brenham in Washington County, Texas. [1] The name Glenblythe is Scottish Gaelic for "joyous valley." [1]
The plantation house had two and a half floors. [1] It included six bedrooms, two halls, a kitchen, a laundry room, a store room, a dining room, a parlor, three enclosed galleries, and two long galleries alongside the house. [1] [2] Next door, there was a lumber room, a carriage house, a granary, stables, a poultry yard, a pigeonry, and servants' houses. [1] [2] There were also six houses for farmhands. [1] Additionally, there was another house for the overseer. [1] Two miles away, there was a church, a hospital, a storehouse, and twenty frame houses, a sugar mill, a flour mill, a gin house, a press, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, and another house for the mill foreman. [1] [2]
The plantation was primarily used for agricultural purposes and contained a winery. [1] There were fields of cotton, corn, barley, millet, hay, and sorghum. [1] Affleck also bred stock such as sheep, cows, mules, oxen, and horses. [1] The plantation was home to one of the largest and earliest plant nurseries in the American South, known as "Central Nurseries." [1] Affleck, who had studied agriculture at the University of Edinburgh, experimented with new crops and also discovered some plants endemic to the South. [1] For example, he discovered the Old Gay Hill Red China, a rose plant which is native to Gay Hill. [3]
There was also a winery, where mustang wine was made with mustang grapes, or vitis mustangensis, for commercial use. [2] Affleck advertised his wine in some of his writing.
On top of the overseer and white farmhands, there were about 120 black slaves on the plantation. [1] They were looked after by a black nurse and a doctor, who saw them at least once a month. [1] In his essay entitled The Duties of an Overseer, published in his 1847 best-selling book, the Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book , Affleck emphasized the need to provide slaves with adequate food, clothing, medical care, and access to Christian church services, in order to increase their productivity. However, shortly after the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865, he complained that his freed slaves had become lazy, neglectful, and disrespectful; by then, he had lost much of his financial clout. [4]
This plantation played a minor role in the American Civil War. In 1862, Thomas Neville Waul (1813–1903), a brigadier general in the Confederate States Army, was a guest at the plantation. [1] During his stay, he organized the Waul's Legion, who used the grounds of the plantation as a camp. [1] [5] After the war was lost, Affleck rented his plantation to recoup his financial loss. [1] [2] He advertised it in the New York Herald . [1] [2]
The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States (C.S.), the Confederacy, or the South, was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confederacy comprised eleven U.S. states that declared secession and warred against the United States during the American Civil War. The states were South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
Established in 1994, the Cane River Creole National Historical Park serves to preserve the resources and cultural landscapes of the Cane River region in Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana. Located along the Cane River Lake, the park is approximately 63 acres and includes two French Creole cotton plantations, Oakland and Magnolia. Both plantations are complete in their historic settings, including landscapes, outbuildings, structures, furnishings, and artifacts; and they are the most intact French Creole cotton plantations in the United States. In total, 65 historic structures and over a million artifacts enhance the National Park Service mission as it strives to tell the story of the evolution of plantation agriculture through the perspective of the land owners, enslaved workers, overseers, skilled workers, and tenant farmers who resided along the Cane River for over two hundred years. This park is included as a site on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.
Waul's Legion was a combined arms force from Texas that fought for the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. Raised in the spring of 1862 at the Glenblythe Plantation near Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas by Brigadier General Thomas Neville Waul, the legion originally consisted of twelve infantry companies, six cavalry companies, and a six-gun battery of artillery.
Duncan Farrar Kenner was an American politician who served as a Deputy from Louisiana to the Provisional Congress of the Confederate States from 1861 to 1862. In 1864, he served as the chief diplomat from the Confederate States of America to Europe.
Pine Hill Plantation was a large cotton plantation of 3,270 acres (1,320 ha) established between 1829 and 1832 in northern Leon County, Florida, by Edward Bradford. It touched the southeast arm of Lake Iamonia. The area today is known as Bradfordville.
Thomas Spalding was a United States representative from Georgia. He was born in Frederica, Georgia, St. Simons Island, Glynn County, Georgia. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1795, but did not practice. He engaged extensively in agricultural pursuits.
Nottoway Plantation, also known as Nottoway Plantation House is located near White Castle, Louisiana, United States. The plantation house is a Greek Revival- and Italianate-styled mansion built by slaves and artisans for John Hampden Randolph in 1859, and is the largest extant antebellum plantation house in the South with 53,000 square feet (4,900 m2) of floor space.
Thomas Neville Waul was a Confederate States Army brigadier general during the American Civil War. Before the Civil War, he was a teacher, lawyer, judge and planter. He served for a year in the Provisional Confederate Congress from Texas. He was captured at the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, on July 4, 1863, and exchanged in October 1863. After his promotion, Waul served in the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. He was wounded at the Battle of Jenkins' Ferry. After the Civil War, Waul was a farmer and lawyer who lived in Texas until his death at age 90.
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 the abolition of slavery, such plantations were generally self-sufficient settlements that relied on the forced labor of enslaved people.
The Cotton Plantation Record and Account Book is a best-selling and pioneering guide to farm accounting in the antebellum cotton-producing regions of the United States. It was first published in 1847 or 1848 by Thomas Affleck (1812–1868), a Scottish immigrant and owner of the Glenblythe Plantation in Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas. The book contains a detailed system, including blank tables to be filled in, that allowed plantation owners to track the efficiency of their production. It also includes essays on various aspects of plantation management, such as the proper care and discipline of slaves.
Thomas Affleck was a Scottish-American nurseryman, almanac editor, and agrarian writer and Southern planter. He published the Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar from 1851 to 1861.
Gay Hill is an unincorporated area and a ghost town in Washington County, Texas.
The Old Gay Hill Red China is a rose native to Gay Hill, Washington County, Texas.
Mustang wine is a type of red wine made with mustang grapes, Vitis mustangensis, in Texas.
James Weston Miller (1815-1888) was an American Presbyterian minister, educator and Confederate chaplain in Texas during the American Civil War. He helped establish the First Presbyterian church in Houston and many Baptist and Methodist churches and schools for blacks. He also taught many daughters of the Southern aristocracy at the Live Oak Female Seminary in Gay Hill, Texas.
Mark R. Cockrill (1788-1872) was an American cattleman, horse breeder and planter. He was the owner of a large farm in Davidson County, Tennessee and a cotton plantation with 300 slaves in Mississippi. He won many prizes for his sheep-rearing both nationally and internationally, and he became known as the "Wool King of the World". He was a multi-millionaire prior to the American Civil War, and he loaned gold to the Confederate States of America during the war.
The 16th Texas Cavalry Regiment was a unit of mounted volunteers from Texas that fought in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. The regiment was recruited in early 1862 and mustered into Confederate service in April 1862. The unit fought as cavalry at the Battle of Cotton Plant but it was dismounted in the summer of 1862. The 16th Cavalry served as infantry in Walker's Texas Division for the remainder of the war. The regiment fought at Milliken's Bend, Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, and Jenkins' Ferry. The unit marched to Texas in early 1865 and disbanded in May 1865.
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