The site is restored to its general appearance in the mid-19th century. All buildings standing today (kitchen cabin, smokehouse, blacksmith shed, tobacco barn, corn crib, horse barn, and chicken lot) are reconstructions. The original kitchen cabin site, which Booker T. Washington himself pointed out in 1908 as the location of his birthplace, and the site of the Burroughs house have been outlined with stone. A white oak tree by the spring, and a catalpa tree and a juniper tree north of the Burroughs home site were growing here during the 1850s.

Young Booker: Child-slave in Tobacco Country

"My master and his sons all worked together side by side with his slaves," Booker T. Washington explained about his boyhood home, in contrast to life on larger plantations. "In this way we all grew up together... There was no overseer, and we got to know our master and he to know us."

Like others in the region, the Burroughs farm was small, 207 acres, and as self-contained as possible. In the minds of these farmers, self-sufficiency meant owning slaves, since paid labor would have further diminished farm profits already marginal. James Burroughs had only about 10 slaves. There was always work to be done and young Booker was expected to do simple chores from the time he could walk. "I was not large enough to be of much service," he said in his autobiography, "still I was occupied in cleaning the yards, carrying water to the men in the fields, or going to the mill."

Hewn Logs for Plain Living

Booker T. Washington was born in a one-room log cabin on the Burroughs property. His mother was a cook and the little dwelling doubled as a kitchen. "The cabin was without glass windows, "Washington wrote. "It had only openings in the side which let in the light and also the cold, chilly air of winter." Booker and his brother and sister slept on the dirt floor bundled in rags. Farm cats wandered in and out through a hole in the corner of the cabin. Booker remembered his mother "cooking a chicken late at night and awakening her children for the purpose of feeding them." He presumed his mother wanted them to eat under the cover of darkness before the owners found out the chicken was stolen.

James and Elizabeth Burroughs, along with several of their 14 children, lived in the "big house." Despite its name, it had only five rooms. Like the kitchen cabin, the house was constructed of hewn logs chinked with clay. Booker recalled that when he had "grown to sufficient size, I was required to go to the ´big house´ at meal-times to fan the flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by a pulley." Listening to the family's dinner-table conversation on such occasions, young Booker picked up news of the outside world.

Animals for Food and Farm Work

In the heart of tobacco country, little attention was paid to the science of raising livestock. Planters kept animals that provided food for themselves and slaves or that otherwise earned their keep.

In 1860 the Burroughses owned four horses which they sheltered in a horse barn. Besides serving as the family's transportation, they pulled plows through fields and wagonloads of cured tobacco leaves to the factory. Washington recalled taking sacks of corn on horse-back to a local mill.

A few head of cattle including "four milch cows", appeared under Burroughs's name on the 1860 county census. In warm weather, milk and butter were cooled in a box through which the spring flowed. Sheep provided meat and wool. For food and bedding feathers, the family kept chickens, ducks, geese, and guinea fowl.

Salted pork, the main source of meat for slaves, came from hogs which roamed free most of the year. If the hogs wandered off their owner's land, they often became the property of whoever found them. In late fall the hogs were fattened on corn - one of Booker's chores - and butchered. The salted meat was hung in the smokehouse to cure over a smoky fire.

An Acre of Fresh Fare

Female slaves tended the gardens. Enclosed by a picket fence, the vegetable garden took up about an acre, space sufficient "to supply a large family with an abundance of vegetables," according to a contemporary report.

Workers hoed, planted and weeded, kept plants free of of insects, and ensured a steady supply of fresh peas, greens, and cucumbers in summer. Cabbages were wintered over in the ground and sweet potatoes were stored in a pit in the kitchen cabin. Beets and cucumbers were pickled and herbs and beans were dried.

Forging the Necessities of Farm Life

As essential as iron implements were to an agricultural enterprise, few farms in the area had full-time blacksmiths. Smiths at a nearby shop in Hales Ford shod horses, hammered out new tools, and constructed wagons and machinery. Itinerant blacksmiths were hired to make major repairs. Slaves undertook minor projects and small carpentry jobs in the blacksmith's shed.

Farm workers also manufactured soap, candles, baskets, and shakes for shingles which continually needed replacing. To produce clothing, flax was woven into rough, prickly cloth that Booker recalled vividly: "I can scarcely imagine any torture, except, perhaps the pulling of a tooth, that is equal to that caused by putting on a new flax shirt for the first time."

Reaping Cash and Crops from Rocky Soil

About half of the acreage was unimproved. The other half divided up by zigzag, split-rail fencing, was planted with crops or provided grazing for livestock. Crops other than tobacco were grown for use on the farm.. Women wove flax into rough cloth for garments. Corn, wheat, and oats, were stored in open cribs and used as feed for livestock or ground into meal. The corn crib was elevated to discourage rodents.

For all its importance, tobacco took up only a small percentage of a farmer's land - probably no more than five acres on the Burroughs farm. Its cultivation required intensive labor, though, far more than needed for any other crop. Early in February, tobacco seeds were sown into a well fertilized plant bed near a source of water. The field was prepared and divided into even rows of small hills, into which the young shoots were later transplanted. Slaves tended the plants throughout the growing season; they cleared weeds, picked off insects, removed the bottom leaves which sapped food and energy, and trimmed buds at the top to strengthen the leaves and prevent the plants from going to seed. In early September, when the leaves were mature, slaves harvested the plants and readied them for curing.

Curing and Storing Golden Leaves

Tobacco plants were harvested whole. In preparation for curing, they were split lengthwise from the top and hung upside down on 5-foot-long oak sticks called laths. The laths, holding six to eight plants each, were suspended across poles in the tobacco barn. Every step of the process was undertaken with great care so as not to bruise or tear the valuable leaves.

The leaves were cured for several days over small wood fires built on the dirt floor of the barn. This phase was often overseen by itinerant curers who traveled from farm to farm in autumn. The following spring, when seasonal moisture had made the leaves less brittle, they were taken to a local tobacco factory. Planters hired out their slaves to these factories to stem, cut, and shape the tobacco into plugs and twists for chewing, the popular form of tobacco consumption at the time.

Park Home Page