Shirley Plantation is an estate on the north bank of the James River in Charles City County, Virginia. It is located on scenic byway State Route 5, between Richmond and Williamsburg. It is the oldest active plantation in Virginia and the oldest family-owned business in North America, dating back to 1614, with operations starting in 1648. It used about 70 to 90 African slaves at a time for plowing the fields, cleaning, childcare, and cooking. It was added to the National Register in 1969 and declared a National Historic Landmark in 1970. After the acquisition, rebranding, and merger of Tuttle Farm in Dover, New Hampshire, Shirley Plantation received the title of the oldest business continuously operating in the United States.
Stratford Hall is a historic house museum near Lerty in Westmoreland County, Virginia. It was the plantation house of four generations of the Lee family of Virginia. Stratford Hall is the boyhood home of two Founding Fathers of the United States and signers of the Declaration of Independence, Richard Henry Lee (1732–1794), and Francis Lightfoot Lee (1734–1797). Stratford Hall is also the birthplace of Robert E. Lee (1807–1870), who served as General-in-Chief of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865). The Stratford Hall estate was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1960, under the care of the National Park Service in the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Lott Cary was an African-American Baptist minister and lay physician who was a missionary leader in the founding of the colony of Liberia on the west coast of Africa in the 1820s. He founded the first Baptist church in 1822, now known as Providence Baptist Church of Monrovia. He served as the colony's acting governor from August 1828 to his death in November that year.
The Charles Pinckney National Historic Site is a unit of the United States National Park Service, preserving a portion of Charles Pinckney's Snee Farm plantation and country retreat. The site is located at 1254 Long Point Road, Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. Pinckney (1757-1824) was a member of a prominent political family in South Carolina. He fought in the American Revolutionary War, was held for a period as prisoner in the North, and returned to the state in 1783. Pinckney, a Founding Father of the United States, served as a delegate to the constitutional convention where he contributed to drafting the United States Constitution.
Kenmore, also known as Kenmore Plantation, is a plantation house at 1201 Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Built in the 1770s, it was the home of Fielding and Betty Washington Lewis and is the only surviving structure from the 1,300-acre (530 ha) Kenmore plantation.
Piney Grove at Southall's Plantation is a property listed on the National Register of Historic Places in Holdcroft, Charles City County, Virginia. The scale and character of the collection of domestic architecture at this site recalls the vernacular architectural traditions of the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries along the James River.
Bremo Slave Chapel, constructed in 1835 and located in Bremo Bluff, Virginia, United States, is the only slave chapel known to exist in the Commonwealth of Virginia. This Gothic Revival structure originally served as a place of worship for the slaves at the Bremo Plantation of General John Hartwell Cocke. Cocke was deeply concerned with the religious and moral state of his slaves, which drove him to construct this chapel.
The Reynolds Homestead, also known as Rock Spring Plantation, is a slave plantation turned historical site on Homestead Lane in Critz, Virginia. First developed in 1814 by slaveowner Abram Reynolds, it was the primary home of R. J. Reynolds (1850-1918), founder of the R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, and the first major marketer of the cigarette. Upon liberation of the plantation in 1863, 88 people were freed from captivity and enslavement. It was later designated a National Historic Landmark in 1977. The homestead is currently an outreach facility of Virginia Tech, serving as a regional cultural center. The house is open for tours.
Otterburn is a Palladian-influenced Greek Revival plantation house near Bedford in Bedford County, Virginia. The hilltop house was first built in 1828 for Benjamin A. McDonald (1797-1871) and his wife, the former Sally Camm of Lynchburg, and overlooks the Little Otter Creek watershed. Benjamin A. McDonald, a prominent local Whig educated in Scotland, was appointed a local justice of the peace in 1832 and won election as Bedford County's first presiding justice in 1852. Re-elected twice, he served in the county's highest office from 1852 through 1864. His associated plantation in 1825 was 1,651-acre (668 ha), and included a gristmill, sawmill and dependent structures, mostly operated by enslaved labor. At its largest, the associated plantation encompassed about 2,800-acre (1,100 ha) acres, but in modern times includes fewer than 16-acre (6.5 ha) acres. Fire gutted the original house in 1841, and it was reconstructed in the Greek Revival style by 1843, with an unusual transverse hall plan, facade that makes the 2+1⁄2-story structure look only 1+1⁄2 stories, and the addition of a loggia, cross-gable roof with a wrought iron balustrade and Greek Revival detailing. The surviving wash house also dates to this mid-19th-century era. During the Civil War, Union soldiers reportedly confiscated flour barrels from the house, and damaged interior stairwell railings when rolling them out. After McDonald died in 1871, since his only child, a daughter, did not survive infancy, the property passed through several owners until 1950, when the house became the Hines Memorial Pythian Home, an orphanage operated by the Knights of Pythias. A detached dormitory added at this time remains but lacks historic significance. The orphanage closed in the early 1960s. For two years in the late 1960s the Otterburn Academy used the premises, as a private school formed during Virginia's Massive Resistance to desegregation. The property later became a rest home for the elderly. The house is being restored.
Hickory Hill is an estate in Hanover County, Virginia. The 3,300 acre former plantation is located approximately 20 miles (32 km) north of the independent city of Richmond and 5 miles (8.0 km) east of the incorporated town of Ashland. The property was listed in the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1974.
Ferry Plantation House, or Old Donation Farm, Ferry Farm, Walke Manor House, is a brick house in the neighborhood of Old Donation Farm in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The site dates back to 1642 when Savill Gaskin started the second ferry service in Hampton Roads to carry passengers on the Lynnhaven River to the nearby county courthouse and to visit plantations along the waterway. A cannon was used to signal the ferry, which had 11 total stops along the river. The first ferry service was started nearby by Adam Thoroughgood.
Brigadier-General John Hartwell Cocke II was an American military officer, planter and businessman. During the War of 1812, Cocke served in the Virginia militia. After his military service, he invested in the James River and Kanawha Canal and helped Thomas Jefferson establish the University of Virginia. The family estate that Cocke built at Bremo Plantation is now a National Historic Landmark.
Exeter was a late 18th-century Georgian house near Leesburg, Virginia, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places from 1973 to August 1980, when it was destroyed by fire and subsequently de-listed from the National Register. The house and its dependencies were unusually elaborate for northern Virginia.
Edge Hill, also known as Edgehill and Edgehill Farm, is a historic house located near Shadwell in Albemarle County, Virginia, United States.
Woodburn, also known as Woodbourne, is a historic plantation house located near Charles City, Charles City County, Virginia. The house was built about 1815 by John Tyler, who later served as tenth President of the United States. The Palladian house is a three-part frame structure consisting of a tall, two-story, three-bay central section with a gable-end facade and flanking chimneys, and two, low one-story, one-bay wings. Also on the property are a contributing one-story frame office and an original smokehouse. The Woodburn property was purchased by John Tyler in 1813. He resided there until 1821, and sold the property to his brother Wat H. Tyler in 1831. During his residence at Woodburn, he served as Congressman.
Pharsalia is a historic plantation house and farm complex located near Tyro, Nelson County, Virginia. The main house was built between 1814 and 1816 using slave labor, and is a one-story, 11 bay, linear, single-pile, Federal style, frame manor house. It has a standing seam metal gable roof and features a three-bay porch with a gable roof. It was enlarged in the mid-19th century to its current T-shaped plan. Also on the property are the contributing kitchen / laundry / slave hospital (1834), icehouse / School, crib barn, smokehouse (1814), weaving Room, several slave quarters, and privy. Also on the property are the sites of a commercial smokehouse and mill.
Windsor is a historic plantation complex located near Cascade, Pittsylvania County, Virginia. The house was completed in 1862, and is a two-story, five bay Georgian style brick dwelling, with Italianate style ornamentation. It has a shallow hipped roof and double-pile, central-hall plan. The main section is flanked by one-story, one bay wings. Also on the property are the contributing original school / playhouse, kitchen, smoke house, laundry, gas house, two slave houses, and a spring house, barn / horse stable, Gris Mill.
Norwood is a historic plantation house located near Powhatan, Powhatan County, Virginia. It was built in the 18th century and remodeled about 1835. It is a two-story, five bay, Federal style brick dwelling with a hipped roof. The remodeling included the addition of flanking two-story wings and a two-story rear extension. The front facade features a sheltering porch with coupled Ionic order columns, marble paving, and granite steps. Also on the property are the contributing office, plantation kitchen, and privy.
Ben Lomond, also known as Ben Lomond Plantation, is a historic plantation house located at Bull Run, Prince William County, Virginia. It was built in 1837, and is a two-story, five bay, red sandstone dwelling with a gable roof. The house has a central-hall plan and one-story frame kitchen addition. One-story pedimented porches shelter the main (north) and rear (south) entries. Also on the property are the contributing frame two-story tenant's house, brick pumphouse, and a bunkhouse dated to the early 20th century; and a meat house, dairy, and slave quarters dated to the late-1830s.
Stirling, also known as Stirling Plantation, is a historic plantation house located near Massaponax, Spotsylvania County, Virginia. It was built between 1858 and 1860, and is a 2+1⁄2-story, five-bay, brick Greek Revival and Federal dwelling. It measures 56 feet by 36 feet, and has a hipped roof and four interior end chimneys. It sits on a raised basement and features entrance porches added about 1912. Also on the property are the contributing kitchen dependency, smokehouse, family cemetery, and the undisturbed archaeological sites of a weaving house and three slave cabins.
