|
Flowerdew Hundred Plantation
|
|
| Location: | Prince George County, Virginia, USA |
|---|---|
| Nearest city: | Garysville, Virginia |
| Governing body: | Private |
| NRHP Reference#: | 75002030[1] |
| Added to NRHP: | August 1, 1975 |
Flowerdew Hundred Plantation dates to 1618/19 with the patent by Sir George Yeardley, the Governor and Captain General of Virginia, of 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the south side of the James River. Yeardley probably named the plantation after his wife's wealthy father, Anthony Flowerdew, just as he named another plantation "Stanley Hundred" after his wife's wealthy mother, Martha Stanley. (Yeardley's wife, Temperance Flowerdew, came from English gentry in the County of Norfolk.)[2] A "hundred" was historically a division of a shire or county. With a population of about 30, the plantation was economically successful with thousands of pounds of tobacco produced along with corn, fish and livestock. Sir George paid 120 pounds (possibly a hogshead of tobacco) to build the first windmill in British America.
Today, Flowerdew Hundred plantation is a private residence.
Contents |
The plantation survived the 1622 onslaught of Powhatan with only six deaths, remaining an active and fortified private plantation unlike many others in the area, such as the Citie of Henricus. The first windmill erected in English North America was built by 1621, and was an English post type. In 1624, Abraham Piersey, Cape Merchant of the Virginia Company purchased Flowerdew Hundred renaming it Piersey's Hundred. Piersey’s Stone House was the first home with a permanent foundation in the colony. The 1624 Muster lists approximately sixty occupants at the settlement, including some of the first Africans in Virginia.
Throughout the seventeenth century, Flowerdew Hundred continued to prosper with the establishment of a secondary settlement. In 1683 with the passage of the king’s Advancement of Trade Act, Flowerdew Towne was formed down river, but it was not very successful within the James River planter economy. Sometime after 1720, a ferry ran from the stretch called Three Mile Reach to the northern bank of the James. An ordinary or tavern was eventually built there for the convenience of the passengers. Part of the old Hundred was owned by a series of family men—all named Joshua Poythress.
The property was shelled during the 1781 campaign of Gen. Benedict Arnold. He ordered Lt. Col. Simcoe and some Queen’s Rangers to spike the guns near Hood’s fort on the eastern edge of the property and then continued 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 house 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 Lieutenant General, Commanding General of the Armies of the United States Ulysses S. Grant ordered his men to cross the James River in an effort to flank Gen. Robert E. Lee. In support of the Overland Campaign, the Corps of Engineers found the right spot at Flowerdew and by a remarkable feat of construction built a pontoon bridge in one evening that set a record for a floating bridge. Grant’s Crossing at Flowerdew (or Wilcox Landing as it is also called) held this record until 1945 and WWII. The Army of the Potomac with three corps and a supply train crossed the river in about three days heading for City Point and the Siege of Petersburg. The site of the pontoon bridge was “found” again in 1986 by Eugene Prince and Taft Kiser. Using Prince’s Principle,[3] a simple 35 mm camera, a cypress tree, and an Alexander Gardner photograph taken in 1864, they were able to place the bridge into the modern landscape.
The old Willcox house was torn down in 1955 though a magnolia planted in 1840 still survives. The bald cypress tree that anchored the great pontoon bridge also remains. In 1978, a commemorative windmill of English post design was built on the farm by English Millwright Derrick Ogden.
Over the years the name has been spelled as Fleur, Flowerdieu, Flower de and Flourdy Hundred. Other names for the property include Piersey or Peircey’s Hundred, Selden, Hood’s, and Bellevue. It is listed on Virginia’s Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail, Civil War Overland Campaign Lee-Grant Trail, and the National Register of Historic Places.
The original land grant of 1,000 acres contains over 60 archaeological sites ranging from Archaic Native American encampments to Twentieth Century homesteads. Registered sites include 44PG64 (Stone House excavation); 44PG65 (Fortified Area); 44PG113 (Selden House sites) and 44PG98 (Flowerdew Towne/Ferry Complex). Archaeological investigations began at Flowerdew in the late 1960s, and continued through 1995 when archaeologist James Deetz led the final excavation in the original limits of the fortified area. The excavations yielded more than 500,000 artifacts, all of which are currently housed at the University of Virginia.
In 1981, David A. Harrison, then owner of Flowerdew Hundred, created the Flowerdew Hundred Foundation. The Foundation operated until 2008.
The address is 1617 Flowerdew Hundred Road, Hopewell, Virginia. Closed after October 12, 2007.