Ellwood Grounds

The Ellwood grounds hold many stories of the people who lived, labored, fought, and died here.

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Today, Ellwood is most well-known because of the American Civil War. During the Battle of Chancellorsville, Confederate General Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson’s arm was buried in the family cemetery. One year later, the house served as U.S. General Gouverneur Warren’s headquarters during the Battle of the Wilderness. However, the story of Ellwood stretches beyond these events. Before the Civil War Ellwood was a slave plantation where the forced labor of many enriched the lives of its owners. After the war, Ellwood was again transformed into a modern farm. Today, Ellwood is preserved and managed by the National Park Service and its story is shared with all who visit. But where does this story begin?
 

Ellwood's Origins

Ellwood is located roughly 20 miles west of a geographic boundary in Virginia known as the Fall Line. At the Fall Line, rivers cross over hard bedrock onto softer sediment. To the west of the Fall Line, rivers are rockier and shallower. To the east of the Fall Line, rivers become wider and faster. The Fall Line defined settlement patterns in Virginia for thousands of years, first by Indigenous tribes and then by European colonists.

By 1600, the Fall Line marked the boundary between two Indigenous language groups. Algonquian-speaking tribes lived to the east of the Fall Line, while Siouan-speaking tribes lived to the west. The Manahoac, a Siouan-speaking tribe, lived in the vicinity of present-day Ellwood. The Manahoac cultivated corn, beans, and squash and built massive burial mounds. They utilized rivers and waterways for fishing and transportation. All through the region, the Manahoac used axes and fires to clear fields within a mature forest. Even though European colonists settled at Jamestown in 1607, few moved west of the Fall Line until 1690. By then, the Manahoac had largely disappeared, either due to disease spread by the Europeans or by their adoption into the Monacan tribe further west.

When European explorers arrived in the region, they noted the presence of large clearings in the forest, evidence of the civilization that once thrived there. In 1710, Queen Anne appointed Alexander Spotswood lieutenant governor of the Virginia colony. During his governorship, Spotswood took a particular interest in the region west of the Fall Line, including where Ellwood stands today. He funded the creation of Fort Germanna, five miles northwest of Ellwood, and encouraged German settlers to live in the fort while he continued to expand his landholdings in the region. Colonists like Spotswood often thought of the area as a “frontier,” overlooking the many Indigenous communities that still inhabited the Americas and viewing the land as something to be taken and sold. Spotwood also saw natural resources as an opportunity for wealth. He opened iron mines and funded the construction of a large plantation, Salubria, for himself. Take a moment to reflect: how did Spotswood’s vision for this land differ from that of the Indigenous people who first lived here?

As development in the region continued, the colonial government established Spotsylvania County, named after Spotswood, in 1720. At the end of his governorship in 1722, Spotswood owned 85,000 acres of land in and around Spotsylvania County. He made contracts with colonists, allowing them to live on parcels of his land in exchange for annual tobacco payments. Iron mining and tobacco cultivation proved to be lucrative businesses in the region. Yet, iron mining and tobacco cultivation also depleted the soil and cost much of the region’s old-growth timber. A dense, second-growth forest took the place of a healthy, ancient forest. Colonists referred to the region as the Wilderness in response to the region’s changed landscape.

Growth in the Wilderness region remained slow due to the large amounts of land held by Spotswood and his heirs. By 1740, Governor Spotswood’s grandson, also named Alexander, created a clearing at Wilderness Bridge over a creek known as Wilderness Run. He funded the construction of a group of buildings just east of the bridge. Around 1771, brothers William and Churchill Jones traveled into the Wilderness. The younger Spotswood invited them to live on his land beside Wilderness Bridge. The Jones brothers accepted Spotswood’s offer. They were among the hundreds of colonists who poured westward in the 1700s at the expense of the Indigenous people that once inhabited the land. Governor Spotswood’s success in transforming a once-inhabited forest into a lucrative settlement encouraged others, like the Jones brothers, to stake their claim in the Wilderness. The area’s dense woods served as a physical reminder of colonial expansion in Virginia.