User:Fleur de Hundred

Flowerdew Hundred plantation dates to 1618 with the patent of 1000 acres on the south side of the James River in Virginia. Sir George Yeardley, the Governor and Captain General of the Virginia Colony, named the property after his wife, Temperance Flowerdew. The area was invaded during the 1781 campaign of Gen. Benedict Arnold. He ordered Lt. Col. Simcoe and some 130 Queen’s Rangers to spike the guns near Hood’s fort on the eastern edge of the property and then proceeded to the capital of Richmond, setting it afire.

The particular plantation was re-formed again through the work of John Vaughn Willcox, a merchant of Petersburg. He married the last Poythress heiress and bought up the surrounding land. They built a new home in 1804 on the high ridge looking over the James with their primary home in nearby Petersburg.

The Civil War came to Flowerdew in June 1864 when the Genl. Grant orders his men to cross the James River in an effort to flank Gen. Robert E. Lee. As part of the Overland Campaign, the Corps of Engineers, by a remarkable feat of construction build a pontoon bridge in one evening that set a record for a floating bridge. At least three corps and a supply train 30-50 miles in length crossed the river in about three days heading for City Point and the Siege of Petersburg.

The Willcox house of 1804 stood until 1955 while parts of the garden still survive with a magnolia planted in 1840. The bald cypress tree that anchored the great pontoon bridge is already over 350 years old. Excavated sites include a fortified compound of 1619, a ferry with an ordinary of the mid-1700s, and the Civil War bridge area. In 1978, a commemorative windmill of English post design was built on the farm. The original land grant of 1000 acres is now part of an educational foundation with over 70 archaeological sites. Archaeologists James Deetz, Ivor Noël Hume and others have conducted research on the property. It is listed on Virginia’s John Smith Trail, Civil War Overland Lee-Grant Trail, and National Register of Historic Places.

Today, Flowerdew Hundred plantation has extensive archaeological sites, tours, a museum, and is open to the public. The address is 1617 Flowerdew Hundred Road, Hopewell, Virginia.

Sources

Deetz, James, ‘’Flowerdew Hundred: the Archaeology of a Virginia Plantation 1619-1864’’. (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1993). Hatch, Charles E., ‘’The First Seventeen Years: Virginia, 1607-1624’’ (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1957). Morman, J.F., ed., ‘’Adventures of Purse and Person, Virginia 1607-1624/5’’ (Alexandria: Order of First Familires of Virginia, 1987). Hume, Ivor Noël, ‘’The Virginia Adventure’’. New York, Alfred A. Knopf. 1994). Frassanito, William A., ‘’Grant and Lee, the Virginia Campaigns, 1864-1865’’ (New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1983). Dawson, Henry B., ‘’Battles of the United States’’, Vol. I. New York. 1858).

Website

http://www.flowerdew.org

Links