Would You Visit a Plantation?

Would You Visit a Plantation?

  • Yes

    Votes: 79 97.5%
  • No

    Votes: 2 2.5%

  • Total voters
    81
It was one of my wife's and my favorite things to do. Of course Mount Vernon, & Monticello, but also the Shirley Plantation near Charles City, Va and the Oatland plantation near Leesburg (They primarily grew wheat but the name Wheatland was already taken so they went with Oatland :smile: ). One of our favorite places is Winchester, Va. we enjoyed walking the streets of the historical district and I believe it is the Belle Grove plantation near there. If you have never been to the Spring house tours in Charleston, S.C., add it to your bucket list.
 
I have and I would again should I ever have the opportunity. Plantations are interesting in and of themselves as they often were akin to small towns. The architecture is interesting and often beautiful. It often brings me a certain odd sensation to stand in an old place with a long history and just imagine who has stood there before and what they witnessed.

I certainly don't think that just visiting a plantation where slavery existed in any way implies that I condone the practice or am somehow celebrating it. That's way too PC an attitude for me. If you feel that way there's going to be a lot of places it's not OK to visit (like the White House).
If walls could talk.
 
I've always found the view that recognizing and preserving historical sites somehow equates into "celebrating" it rather bizarre..

I'm always one for dialogue and discussion, to try to understand the other person's point of view. But sometimes it seems like the other person's rage is so much at the center of who they are, that a two-way conversation is impossible.

Roy b.
 
Because many historic homes belonged to famous and/or wealthy people, there has been a phenomenon I like to call the "museum effect." "If they all lived like this we should too," or the flip side "look, they all lived like us." So I think we came away with an overwhelmingly upper-class and upper-middle-class and clean and tidy picture of the past. It's only been recently that museums have been intentionally targeting showing how the rest lived, both the free and enslaved lower classes. It's part of the plantation story, so, yes, I would visit a historic home that termed itself a "plantation." If it turned out only to be a "house beautiful" tour, I would seriously consider leaving a suggestion, or following with an email, nudging the museum to tell the story of all the people who lived there or supported the lifestyle, and not just the fortunate few at the top.
 
Because many historic homes belonged to famous and/or wealthy people, there has been a phenomenon I like to call the "museum effect." "If they all lived like this we should too," or the flip side "look, they all lived like us." So I think we came away with an overwhelmingly upper-class and upper-middle-class and clean and tidy picture of the past. It's only been recently that museums have been intentionally targeting showing how the rest lived, both the free and enslaved lower classes. It's part of the plantation story, so, yes, I would visit a historic home that termed itself a "plantation." If it turned out only to be a "house beautiful" tour, I would seriously consider leaving a suggestion, or following with an email, nudging the museum to tell the story of all the people who lived there or supported the lifestyle, and not just the fortunate few at the top.
And if I toured the Henry Ford or Nelson Dewey home to hear as much as about the maid or doorman, I'd probably leave a suggestion to focus a bit more on Ford and Dewey as well..............to each their own i reckon.

Edit-added- Perhaps because I have toured so many places I dont see that need at all...For example the Living History Farms in Iowa, Stonefield in Wisc, Lincolns New Salem in Illinois, or Stuhr museum in Nebraska all show and demonstrate how lower and middle classes lived as well. So when I go to a famous persons home, I expect the focus to be the famous.
 
Last edited:
1581788167497.png


Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Louisiana, contains two very interesting plantations, Oakland and Magnolia complete with "quarters" above, and as a unit of the National Park Service does the usual good job interpreting all facets of the properties; nearby between them along the Cane River Road is another famous plantation, Melrose.



Montpelier below in Maryland is an altogether different type plantation, originally growing tobacco instead of cotton or sugar cane like those in Louisiana. Unfortunately, located as it is in a tony suburb of D. C., only the Big House and the land immediately surrounding it survives.

1581788523026.png
 
View attachment 346789

Cane River Creole National Historical Park, Louisiana, contains two very interesting plantations, Oakland and Magnolia complete with "quarters" above, and as a unit of the National Park Service does the usual good job interpreting all facets of the properties; nearby between them along the Cane River Road is another famous plantation, Melrose.



Montpelier below in Maryland is an altogether different type plantation, originally growing tobacco instead of cotton or sugar cane like those in Louisiana. Unfortunately, located as it is in a tony suburb of D. C., only the Big House and the land immediately surrounding it survives.

View attachment 346790
I havent ever toured a rice or sugar plantation yet, hope to sometime. Least in the US, toured a sugarcare/rum estate in Jamaica

Should add some phenomenal great houses in Jamaica, if ever visit Rose Hall most famous in Montego Bay, be sure to check out Cinnamon Hill nearby, it was owned by Johnny Cash
 
Last edited:
It was one of my wife's and my favorite things to do. Of course Mount Vernon, & Monticello, but also the Shirley Plantation near Charles City, Va and the Oatland plantation near Leesburg (They primarily grew wheat but the name Wheatland was already taken so they went with Oatland :smile: ). One of our favorite places is Winchester, Va. we enjoyed walking the streets of the historical district and I believe it is the Belle Grove plantation near there. If you have never been to the Spring house tours in Charleston, S.C., add it to your bucket list.

Oatlands.jpg

My husband and I enjoyed our tour of Oatlands! We love that area and hope to return this year. Have you visited Morven Park? We have it on our list. Winchester is a great base camp for touring the area. The historical district is very nice.
 
… The one I worked on, the original part of the house, was built in the 1780's by German POW's, according to the owner. They had lots of old paper work on the place, & claimed the Germans were masons who thought they were coming here to work. When they were informed they were to fight the British, they refused. They were brought to that location, & built their own prison, which was later added on to, & became a working plantation for many years.

The roof rafters were original hemlock. It was super cool seeing the dowels, & such. In other places, I could see original blacksmith nails. Most of the stone, looked like river rock. The main roof was slate but, not original. This was pure trade p*rn to me.
This sounds garbled to me - During the Revolution there were three notable captures involving relatively large numbers of so-called Hessian prisoners-of-war: Washington's Christmas Day 1776 attack on Trenton, N.J. netted almost a thousand; the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, N.Y. the following Autumn netted 2,000-3,000 more; and finally Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in October, 1781 yielded another similar number. ALL these were soldiers whose services had been sold by their German princes to Britain's King George and knew perfectly well what was expected of them; beforehand, no doubt many of them had been tradesmen of various kinds, including stonemasons, etc. Before the Revolution, the Shenandoah Valley had been settled largely by Germans moving south from Pennsylvania into then-unoccupied lands. Since these settlers spoke German and the Shenandoah was a remote area, this was a logical place to send these prisoners, especially those from Yorktown. At Winchester the large stone house below belonging to Revolutionary hero General Daniel Morgan who was instrumental in the battle at Saratoga was reputedly built by some of these POW's.

Winchester 012.jpg
 
Last edited:
This sounds garbled to me - During the Revolution there were three notable captures involving relatively large numbers of so-called Hessian prisoners-of-war: Washington's Christmas Day 1776 attack on Trenton, N.J. netted almost a thousand; the surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga, N.Y. the following Autumn netted 2,000-3,000 more; and finally Cornwallis' surrender at Yorktown in October, 1781 yielded another similar number. ALL these were soldiers whose services had been sold by their German princes to Britain's King George and knew perfectly well what was expected of them; beforehand, no doubt many of them had been tradesmen of various kinds, including stonemasons, etc. Before the Revolution, the Shenandoah Valley had been settled largely by Germans moving south from Pennsylvania into then-unoccupied lands. Since these settlers spoke German and the Shenandoah was a remote area, this was a logical place to send these prisoners, especially those from Yorktown. At Winchester the large stone house below belonging to Revolutionary hero General Daniel Morgan who was instrumental in the battle at Saratoga was reputedly built by some of these POW's.

View attachment 346798
I have no idea. Which is why I said, according to the owner. I'm not surprised if any of their story is truth, half truth, or very little truth. I was just relating what the current owner stated to me. Honestly, I was more taken by the craftsmanship of the carpenters, & integrity of the materials they used, than anything else.

I hear all kinds of stories when working on some of the older homes in my area. I never have an expectation that I am being relayed 100% factual info, nor do I automatically discount their information. I'm sure most of them, are telling the story as it was told to them or, are the conclusions drawn from their own research.

There are plenty of 19th century homes in my general area. I've had the pleasure of working on several of them. The last one I worked on was built during the war. Again, according to the owner.

There are even some 18th century homes around too. Though it's more rare for me to work on one of those.
 
Because many historic homes belonged to famous and/or wealthy people, there has been a phenomenon I like to call the "museum effect." "If they all lived like this we should too," or the flip side "look, they all lived like us." So I think we came away with an overwhelmingly upper-class and upper-middle-class and clean and tidy picture of the past. It's only been recently that museums have been intentionally targeting showing how the rest lived, both the free and enslaved lower classes. It's part of the plantation story, so, yes, I would visit a historic home that termed itself a "plantation." If it turned out only to be a "house beautiful" tour, I would seriously consider leaving a suggestion, or following with an email, nudging the museum to tell the story of all the people who lived there or supported the lifestyle, and not just the fortunate few at the top.

Oakmont, PA, is a town local to me in Pennsylvania. A number of years ago, an elderly woman died and left her family’s 1890’s Queen Anne Victorian house to Oakmont with the requirement that it be used for an educational purpose. The local government eventually turned it into a house museum to teach visitors how a middle class family lived at the turn of the last century.

I toured it once. The docent explained how such tasks as laundry were done in the 1890’s.
 
Oakmont, PA, is a town local to me in Pennsylvania. A number of years ago, an elderly woman died and left her family’s 1890’s Queen Anne Victorian house to Oakmont with the requirement that it be used for an educational purpose. The local government eventually turned it into a house museum to teach visitors how a middle class family lived at the turn of the last century.

I toured it once. The docent explained how such tasks as laundry were done in the 1890’s.
It used to be a huge number of towns in the Midwest all had their preserved pioneer cabin or cabins, some have gone away, which I dont really mind it was rather overkill before...….
 
Back
Top