William Ludwell Lee of Green Spring Farm died in 1803 after writing a will the previous year that granted freedom to his slaves and directed that comfortable homes be built for them on the Hotwaters, a subsidiary farm about four miles north of Green Spring. Soon after his death, his executor began building houses for the former slaves. On this site, three reconstructed cabins, based on historical and archaeological research, evoke life for the men, women and children who lived here between 1804 and 1860, as well as the rigors of daily life and the economic hardships experienced by free Blacks in James City County nearly 60 years before President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
