The Slate Hill Plantation is a historic Southern

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

Prince Edward County, Virginia Prince Edward County is located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 21,849. Its county seat is Farmville. History Formation and county seats Prince Edward County was formed in the Virginia Colony in ...

. In the

Antebellum South In History of the Southern United States, the history of the Southern United States, the Antebellum Period (from la, ante bellum, lit=Status quo ante bellum, before the war) spanned the Treaty of Ghent, end of the War of 1812 to the start of ...

, it was used to grow

tobacco Tobacco is the common name of several plants in the genus '' Nicotiana'' of the family Solanaceae, and the general term for any product prepared from the cured leaves of these plants. More than 70 species of tobacco are known, but the ...

. The decision to establish

Hampden–Sydney College gr, Ye Shall Know the Truth , established = , type = Private liberal arts men's college , religious_affiliation = Presbyterian Church (USA) , endowment = $258 million (2021) , president = Larry Stimpert , city = Hampden Sydney, Virginia , cou ...

was made here in 1775, although its campus is located two miles North. The Birthplace HSC

Location

The plantation is located two miles South of the campus of Hampden–Sydney College and Worsham in Prince Edward County, Virginia.History of Hampden–Sydney College: Slate Hill Plantation
/ref>
/ref>''Historic Garden Week in Virginia'', Garden Club of Virginia, 1974, p. 9

/ref> It spans 252 acres.

History

The land was granted to Joseph Morton in 1739. The Plantation house in the Southern United States, main house on the plantation was built in 1756 by Nathaniel Venable (1733–1804), who served in the

House of Burgesses The House of Burgesses was the elected representative element of the Virginia General Assembly, the legislative body of the Colony of Virginia. With the creation of the House of Burgesses in 1642, the General Assembly, which had been established ...

from 1766 to 1768.Historical Marker: Slate Hill Plantation
/ref>Angie Way
Slate Hill unearthed
''The Esther Thomas Atkinson Museum of Hampden–Sydney College Newsletter'', May 2011, pp. 2–3 The house is one story and a half, with a kitchen in another building to reduce the risk of fire.Dorothy Williams Turner, ''Williams - Wolcott and related families'', D.W. Turner, 1989, p. 5

/ref> About a hundred slaves worked on the plantation, which was used to grow

. In February 1775, a conclave composed of Nathaniel Venable, John Morton and Fred Johnston met in an outbuilding and decided to establish

nearby.''The Iron Worker'', Lynchburg Foundry Company, 1954, Volumes 18-20, p.

/ref>''The Cross & Crescent'', 1939, Volume 26, Issue 6, p. 408
/ref> After Nathaniel Venable's death, the house was inherited by one of his sons, Richard N. Venable. Another son,

Samuel Woodson Venable Samuel ''Šəmūʾēl'', Tiberian: ''Šămūʾēl''; ar, شموئيل or صموئيل '; el, Σαμουήλ ''Samouḗl''; la, Samūēl is a figure who, in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible, plays a key role in the transition from the bi ...

, lived in another house East of the main house. A third son, who also grew up on the plantation,

Abraham B. Venable Abraham Bedford Venable (November 20, 1758December 26, 1811) was a Virginia lawyer, planter and politician who served in the U.S. House of Representatives and briefly as U.S. Senator, as well as in the Virginia House of Delegates. Early and fam ...

, served in the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

from 1791 to 1799,

Virginia House of Delegates The Virginia House of Delegates is one of the two parts of the Virginia General Assembly, the other being the Senate of Virginia. It has 100 members elected for terms of two years; unlike most states, these elections take place during odd-numbe ...

(1800-1803) and briefly in the

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...

(1803 to 1804) before becoming president of the Bank of Virginia and one of the many dead in the

Richmond Theatre fire The Richmond Theatre fire occurred in Richmond, Virginia, United States, on Thursday, December 26, 1811. It devastated the Richmond Theatre, located on the north side of Broad Street between what is now Twelfth and College Streets. The fire kille ...

. In 1944, the outbuilding was moved to the campus of H–SC. The main house was abandoned by the 1950s and demolished in 1971. A historical marker was added in 2003. Since 2006, Dr. Charles Pearson and his students have been restoring the plantation. They have unearthed ceramics dating back to the 1790s. Some of those ceramics have been identified as made by the

Leeds Pottery Leeds Pottery, also known as Hartley Greens & Co., is a pottery manufacturer founded around 1756 in Hunslet, just south of Leeds, England. It is best known for its creamware, which is often called Leedsware; it was the "most important rival" in ...

in 1783. They have also found animal remains like pig teeth. Simultaneously, the Esther Thomas Atkinson Museum on the H–SC campus has had an exhibit about the plantation called ''Beneath This Hill: Historical Archaeology at Slate Hill Plantation, Birthplace of Hampden–Sydney College''.

References

{{coord, display=title, 37.217914, -78.443009 Plantations in Virginia Houses completed in 1756 Hampden–Sydney College Tobacco plantations in the United States Prince Edward County, Virginia 1756 establishments in Virginia

Location

History

Further reading

References