Chandler House Site

The Chandler House (Fairfield House) was once located here within a lager slave plantation complex.

NPS Photo

The space outlined on the ground here was once the site of a large, brick house on the Fairfield Plantation. Prior to the creation of Fairfield Plantation, this land was part of the Ormesby Plantation, which dated to the early 1700s. In 1806, members of the Thornton family divided the Ormesby Plantation three ways. John Thornton received 465 acres of Ormesby, which included this land that is today the Stonewall Jackson Death Site.

During the 1820s, John Thornton funded the construction of a house here, which became known as Fairfield Plantation. Then in 1828, John Thornton ordered the construction of a plantation office building, the only original building that still stands today. It is likely that he utilized enslaved labor to construct the main house and outbuildings. During John Thornton’s ownership of Fairfield, he increased the size of the plantation to 753 acres. After John and his wife, Mildred, died in 1844 and 1845, Thomas Coleman Chandler purchased the property at auction.

In the lead-up to the Civil War, Thomas Chandler lived at Fairfield with his wife, Mary, and their ten children. The Chandlers enslaved 66 people, who they forced to labor in the surrounding fields and in the main house. Thomas Chandler also employed an overseer, Pearson Payne, to manage the plantation. In 1854, Thomas Chandler funded the construction of a new, two-story, brick house in place of the original house. The Chandlers temporarily moved into the office building during its construction. Chandler likely utilized enslaved labor for the construction of his new house, outlined on the ground at this site.

Thomas Chandler’s plantation records reveal that his family enjoyed many luxuries at Fairfield, such as molasses, sugar, and coffee, while the enslaved people had a limited diet and lived in poorly constructed quarters. 

In 1860, the buildings present at Fairfield included the main house, smokehouse, office, barn, stables, outhouse, and quarters for enslaved workers. The Chandlers also had a three-terraced garden in front of their house as well as large quantities of horses, cows, sheep, and hogs. Thomas Chandler benefitted greatly from his home’s proximity to Guinea Station. Yet, Fairfield’s location beside the RF&P had a second consequence that was realized when civil war broke out in 1861. The Chandlers’ plantation was directly in the path of traveling armies. As war spread through Virginia, the lives of the Chandlers, as well as the lives of the people they enslaved, were forever changed.

Fairfield After the War

During the postwar era, Fairfield Plantation lost its prominence and entered into a period of decline. Without enslaved people to work the land, white landowners in the South struggled to maintain large plantations such as Fairfield. Following the Chandler family’s move in 1865, Edgar McKenney resided at Fairfield. In 1873, McKenney was forced to put Fairfield up for auction due to financial issues.

Between 1873 and 1909, the property was sold at least two additional times and the surrounding farmland was sold off. By 1909, the house tract totaled only five acres. The main house was in a ruinous state. As interest in the memory of "Stonewall" Jackson and his death grew, efforts went underway to preserve the structure in which he died, the office next to the main house. 

Consequently, the main house and all other structures left from Fairfield were demolished at some time between 1909 and 1913.