Woodlawn (plantation)
Woodlawn is a historic home in Fairfax County , Virginia . It was originally part of the historic Mount Vernon plantation , the country estate of George Washington .
Woodlawn was built from 1800 to 1805 for the nephew of George Washington Lawrence Lewis and his bride (Washington’s step-daughter), Eleanor “Nelly” Custis Lewis . At Washington's request, it was designed by William Thornten , the architect of the Capitol . While the Lewis family lived in the house, the property included 2,000 hectares (810 hectares) of land that the couple had received from Washington as a wedding present, and over 100 people worked there, including around 90 slaves. Woodlawn is located on a hill from which you can see Mount Vernon.
In 1846 a son of Lewis sold the property to two Quaker families, the Troths and the Gillinghams. They rejected slavery for ethical reasons. Woodlawn thus became a free labor colony , which employed free black and white farmers and thus provided proof that the liberation of slaves did not have to mean the end of the cultivation of the southern state plantations. This attitude made Woodlawn a controversial social experiment and thus a target for the Confederate troops in the American Civil War.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Woodlawn had largely crumbled and was badly damaged by a hurricane in 1896. In 1901 the playwright Paul Kester moved into the house with his mother, brother and 60 cats and began to restore it. In 1905, Kester moved to nearby Gunston Hall and sold Woodlawn to Miss Elizabeth Sharpe, a wealthy Pennsylvania heiress who lovingly restored Woodlawn for 24 years. The last private owners of Woodlawn were Senator and Mrs. Oscar Underwood of Alabama . After Mrs. Underwood's death, the property was bought by a private organization to ensure its preservation. Eventually it became the property of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, part of the National Trust Community Investment Corporation , in 1952 . It is open to the public all year round. In February 1970, the plantation was listed as a building on the National Register of Historic Places . Woodlawn has been a National Historic Landmark since August 1998 and is one of 121 such historic sites in Virginia. In November 2011, the protected area was expanded to include the site.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Woodlawn Plantation on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed March 9, 2020.
- ↑ Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Virginia. National Park Service , accessed March 9, 2020.
- ↑ Woodlawn Plantation (Boundary Increase) on the National Register of Historic Places , accessed March 9, 2020.