Poplar Forest - WikiHQ

Poplar Forest is a plantation and retreat home in Forest, Virginia, United States, that belonged to Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father and third U.S. president. Jefferson inherited the property in 1773 and began designing and working on his retreat home in 1806. While Jefferson is the most famous individual associated with the property, it had several owners before being purchased for restoration, preservation, and exhibition in 1984.

Poplar Forest was designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1971 and is now operated as a historic house museum by the nonprofit Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest. The corporation is also responsible for the ongoing archaeological study and restoration work at the property. The Corporation celebrated the completed restoration of Jefferson's villa retreat in April 2023.

History

The land upon which Poplar Forest was built shows archaeological evidence of having been populated by native peoples from the Paleo-Indian through Late Woodland periods. Similar to Stith, Wayles did not live on the property due to his career as an attorney and businessman in Charles City County, Virginia.]]

Wayles' daughter Martha Wayles Skelton was married to Thomas Jefferson, and the couple inherited the full 4,819 acres when Wayles died in 1773. Jefferson maintained sole ownership of the property and the slaves until 1790, when he gave 1,000 acres and six slave families to his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. Randolph would later divide and sell the rest of Jefferson's landholdings; he also sold many of Jefferson's enslaved persons to repay debts. The Eppeses sold Poplar Forest in November 1828 to William Cobbs; Cobbs assigned the task of managing the property to his son-in-law Edward Hutter in 1840 following his marriage to Cobb's daughter Emma. The organization has worked in recent years to reacquire land within the original plantation boundaries, and as of 2008 owned 617 acres of the original property.

Architectural design

thumb|East elevation of Poplar Forest (2004)

When construction began at Poplar Forest in 1806, Jefferson was President of the United States. He supervised the construction from Washington, D.C.

thumb|View along one of the wings, Poplar Forest, near Lynchburg, Virginia, USA

The octagonal house may have been the first of its kind to have been built in the United States. The house at Poplar Forest is made of brick and has an octagonal floor plan. The main floor’s plan has a central square space (dining room) with elongated octagon rooms on three sides. The house’s entry is on the fourth (northern) side of the central room where an entry hall, which is centered on the facade, divides two smaller rooms. There is a skylight in the central dining room. The dining room dimensions are 20’ x 20’ x 20’, which makes it a perfect cube.

The Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest used early 19th-century building materials including heavy timber-frame construction, hemp sash cord, and iron hardware from Colonial Williamsburg. They also used 19th-century building techniques, such as column rendering and burning limestone to produce traditional lime mortar and plaster, for their restoration work.

Slavery

Enslaved men, women, and children were present on the property from 1766 through 1865, when slavery was formally abolished in the United States. Present-day knowledge of the enslaved populations and their contributions to Poplar Forest is based on both archaeological and archival evidence. John Wayles used slave labor to originally develop roadwork on the property, and when Thomas and Martha Jefferson inherited the land that included Poplar Forest from Wayles, they also inherited 135 enslaved men, women, and children as well as other tracts of land in Amherst, Cumberland, Charles City, Goochland, and Powhatan counties.

James (Jame) Hubbard was purchased by Jefferson when he was 30 and went on to oversee field laborers at Poplar Forest. He fathered six children with a fellow slave named Cate and fostered several others, and worked as a hogkeeper when he was older. Scholars are also able to trace his family members and their roles at Poplar Forest, which included Nace, Hannah, Nancy, Joan, James, and Phill.

More recent excavations focused on an area believed to have held paper mulberry trees; Jefferson planted two rows in order to help create naturalistic wings to complement the Palladian style of his retreat house. Scholars believe that the site was home to a slave cabin likely occupied between 1840 and 1860.

A Spanish half real had also been excavated, pierced at the top. Beginning in 1765, Spanish reales were standard currency in Virginia, and were considered legal tender from 1793 to 1857 in the United States as a whole. Though, considering the recovered half real was found altered, it suggests that the real was worn as an adornment object.

Present day

The Corporation for Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest has worked to restore Jefferson's plantation and retreat home since 1984, when the tax-exempt non-profit organization purchased 50 acres of land and the original buildings with the goal of preserving the estate for public educational benefit. The corporation operates Poplar Forest as a historic house museum with the mission to preserve, inspire, and tell the emerging story of Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest.

Poplar Forest first welcomed visitors in 1986, and now conducts guided tours thematically dedicated to the main retreat house and the enslaved community in addition to its ongoing restoration and archaeological work. The property is a National Historic Landmark and designated a Virginia History Trails site as part of Virginia's 2019 Commemoration.

References

External links

Poplar Forest, State Route 661, Forest, Bedford County, VA: 75 photos, 10 color transparencies, 22 measured drawings, 6 data pages, and 6 photo caption pages at Historic American Buildings Survey
"Thomas Jefferson's Poplar Forest", website of the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest
Thomas Jefferson's architecture , University of Virginia