The National Colonial Farm

Founded in 1958, The National Colonial Farm was created to show how an ordinary farm family lived in colonial times before the American Revolution and has served as an important center for preserving rare strains of historic crops. While great Potomac River estates such as Mount Vernon and Gunston Hall remain well preserved, most small tobacco plantations of the period have vanished. The farm presents life on these smaller plantations through the crops people grew, the foods they ate, the animals they raised, and the structures they lived in. Its colonial farmhouse, tobacco house, kitchen, crops, gardens, and chestnut rail fences portray a rural, often isolated family life. Virginia Gourdseed corn, Red May wheat, and Orinoco tobacco, along with garden produce, represent basic staples of life, and Red Devon cattle, Razorback hogs, Hog Island sheep, and various types of fowl reflect the kinds of animals people maintained. Hundreds of thousands of people have visited, and the site hosts education programs for the general public and thousands of schoolchildren each year as a project of the Accokeek Foundation supported by National Park Service grants, private foundations, and public contributions.

Fort Hunt, Virginia · United States