Long Haul

Behind the mansion, a yard bustled with daily chores and hard labor as enslaved people crossed dirt paths carrying garden produce and supplies for field workers laboring across the 1,100 plantation acres. Clotheslines hung with wet laundry were stirred by wind and by dust raised from the wheels of visiting carriages. Enslaved domestic workers slept in cramped quarters on either side of the yard, and although those structures survive, the field slave cabins that stood at the south end of the estate near the river are gone. In 1853, G.W.P. Custis wrote to his granddaughter Agnes Lee that Daniel hauled much manure with the cart and carriage horse and that old roots and brush were being wheeled away.

Arlington, Virginia · United States