Ellwood Service Yard

The service yard was once the location of many outbuildings associated with the slave plantation.

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This open, grassy field beside the main house, was once the site of the service yard on the Ellwood Plantation. Slight depressions are still visible on the ground in places where outbuildings once stood. Enslaved people lived and worked here in buildings that no longer stand today. How might uncovering new information about the lives of the enslaved people forced to live and work here shape our perceptions of this place in the future?

A Brief History of Ellwood Plantation

Shortly after the Jones family moved into the Wilderness in the 1770s, they signed a lease with Alexander Spotswood for a 240-acre tract of land. Around 1775, they built a house on the site and lived there with their wives. Then in 1777, William Jones signed a lease which added 400 acres to the land that he and his brother were leasing. The lease provided the Jones family with access to the buildings already present on the property, which included a house, kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, and well. The Jones brothers utilized enslaved labor to plant an orchard and cultivate the surrounding fields. They named their plantation Ellwood. 

By the end of the American Revoluion the original house had burnt down and William Jones purchased the property, ending his lease with Alexander Spotswood. During the 1790s, William funded the construction of a new house at Ellwood, the same house that stands today. By 1799, Ellwood Plantation consisted of a house, kitchen, dairy, smokehouse, and enslaved quarters. The outbuildings stood in this service yard just north of the house. Over the next twenty years, William Jones expanded Ellwood to nearly 2,000 acres. Utilizing enslaved labor, he added a brick oven, store house, barns, and additional enslaved quarters to his plantation. As the plantation grew, so did the number of enslaved people present to work the land. By 1820, Jones enslaved 107 people at Ellwood. Through the labor of those he held in bondage, William Jones became one of the wealthiest men in Spotsylvania County.

In the 1820s both William’s brother, Churchill, and wife, Betty, died. William took ownership of his brother’s two plantations, Woodville and Chatham. He sold Chatham to his daughter and son-in-law, Hannah and John Coalter, a year later. In 1828, William married Lucinda Gordon. They welcomed their first and only child, Betty Churchill Jones, a year later. William Jones lived out his life at Ellwood, dying in 1845 at the age of 95. He left Ellwood to his wife, Lucinda. His will stipulated that if Lucinda remarried, Ellwood would pass to their daughter, Betty. Lucinda remarried and gave up the property in 1847. The following year, Betty married James Horace Lacy, and the young couple took ownership of Ellwood Plantation. Over the course of the next decade, Horace and Betty lived at Ellwood, where they raised their children and enjoyed the quiet of the countryside at the expense of those they enslaved. 

While details surrounding the Jones and Lacy families are well-documented, less is known about the hundreds of people who labored on the Ellwood Plantation for nearly 100 years. The story of Ann, an enslaved woman who lived at Ellwood, is one story that reveals the challenges that enslaved people faced. In 1826, Ann, at only 18 years old, set fire to a barn at Ellwood as an act of resistance. The judge for Spotsylvania County sentenced her to public sale, for which William Jones received $300.

Why did Ann choose to resist against William Jones despite the potential consequences she would face? What does Ann’s story tell us about the options available to enslaved people?

Today, Ellwood looks very different from its time as a working plantation. Compare the atmosphere that existed at Ellwood during Ann’s life with the quiet atmosphere today. The buildings in which enslaved people lived and the cemetery in which they were buried have been lost with time. For much of Ellwood’s history, the plantation service yard was a place of work and hardship, but also a place for resistance against unfair treatment and enslavement. Today, we are responsible for asking difficult questions about our shared history and remembering the stories of everyone who lived here.