After Jefferson's death in 1826, Francis Eppes inherited the house and 1,074 acres at Poplar Forest, while his cousin Thomas Jefferson Randolph sold the rest of the estate to cover debts. Eppes sold Poplar Forest to William Cobbs in 1828, and the Eppes, Cobbs, Hutter, and Watts families who lived there in the 19th and 20th centuries reshaped the property in ways still visible today by planting most of the surviving trees and shrubs and building many remaining structures, including two brick tenant houses now used as offices, the archaeology laboratory, the smokehouse, and the museum shop. The dwelling house was destroyed by fire in 1845 and renovated in 1846. Archaeological and historical research has also identified sites of barns and slave quarters that supported the working farm. One feature in this area, the sunken greenhouse or "pit for flowers" that Edward Hutter said was built beside a kitchen garden in 1848, served as a nursery for spring seedlings before it was abandoned and filled with trash in the early 20th century. The later history of the property included William Cobbs's death in 1852, the inheritance of the plantation by Emma Cobbs Hutter, Christian S. Hutter's acquisition of Poplar Forest in 1889 for use as a farm and summer home, the filling in of the Pit for Flowers around 1900, and the sale of Poplar Forest to James Watts in 1946.