Lumpkins Jail

Lumpkins Jail, known as the Devil’s Half Acre, was one of the nation’s most notorious slave jails, where runaway slaves were punished and large numbers of “surplus” slaves were collected for resale in the major markets of Charleston and New Orleans. An archaeological test pit near the center of the site, dug 15 feet deep, revealed the foundation of a kitchen building and the brick courtyard of the jail building at the bottom of the hill. A firm walking surface had been necessary around the jail because the area was muddy, with old Shockoe Creek once running close by, and the land is now about 15 feet higher than it was then, having once sloped up the hill to MCV across what is now I-95. The jail fence boundaries and building locations remain underground and are difficult to identify precisely. The area was once undesirable, regularly flooded by the creek and contaminated with sewage and workshop wastes, while smoke from cooking and heating fires was trapped by the valley walls, making it smelly and polluted. The excavation was carefully refilled with sand and earth to protect the findings and preserve the integrity of what remains while allowing future archaeological exploration. Remnants of an iron factory built over the site in the 1880’s remain ahead as piles of rock, brick, and boulders, and cobblestones and broken bricks came from paving used around the School for Former Slaves, which occupied the old slave jail immediately after the Civil War and later became Virginia Union University. More than 75 recovered items, including pieces of crockery, plates, bottles, a child’s doll, and the sole of a simple shoe, were preserved in surprisingly good condition by the damp, low-oxygen soil and offer insight into everyday life under slavery. The site is considered one of the nation’s most important places for studying the details of the American trade in human beings.

Richmond, Virginia · United States