In the summer of 1800, at Young’s Spring adjacent to this park, Gabriel, an enslaved man owned by Thomas Prosser who lived on Brookfield Plantation in Henrico County, was appointed leader of a planned rebellion. He aimed to seize the capital and persuade Governor James Monroe to support greater political, social, and economic equality, recruiting enslaved people, white artisans, freemen, religious supporters, and French sympathizers. The uprising was set for the night of August 30, 1800, with enslaved people from neighboring counties gathering north of Brook Bridge on Brook Road, killing local plantation owners to preserve secrecy, then moving to Richmond to join others from Petersburg. One group was to secure Mayo’s Bridge and burn Rocketts, a Richmond warehouse district, as a diversion, while another would seize the State Capitol, after which Governor Monroe would be kidnapped and pressed to accept the rebels’ demands. A massive thunderstorm made roads and bridges impassable and forced a delay until the following evening, but before the plan could proceed, Tom and Pharaoh, two enslaved men from Meadow Farm, revealed it to their owner, Mosby Sheppard, who warned Governor Monroe and prompted him to call out the militia to protect the capital. Gabriel fled down the Chickahominy River and eventually reached Norfolk, but on September 23, 1800, he was arrested and jailed in the newly built Penitentiary; the Henrico Court convicted him and more than twenty others of conspiracy, and he was executed at the Gallows on October 10, 1800.