Article

The Evolution of Virginia Agriculture on the Portici Cultural Landscape

A colored photograph of a cluster of trees in a field. There is a line of trees running along the horizon in the background of the image and there are wispy clouds in the sky.
Row of trees adjacent to the farm road trace leading to the Lewis Ford, facing east.

NPS/Jones 2021

This article was adapted from the Cultural Landscape Inventory documentation on Portici, Manassas National Battlefield Park, prepared by Angelina Riberio Jones in 2022.

Within the boundary of Manassas National Battlefield Park, Portici Plantation has been a fixture in the landscape since 1820, and it was preceded by an earlier plantation on the same property from around 1733. Portici is a historic landscape that demonstrates the development of historic agriculture in Virginia since European contact and up to the present day.

The earliest evidence of agriculture in Virginia is associated with Indigenous Algonquin and Siouan speaking people who periodically performed controlled burns to clear land for cultivation. Though people have occupied present-day Virginia since the Paleoindian period (11,000 to 9,000 BCE), widespread agriculture was not practiced until the Late Woodland period (1000 to 1600 CE). After European colonizers arrived, the agriculture industry continued to dominate the economy in much of rural Virginia, including what is known today as Prince William County where Manassas National Battlefield Park is located.

Early European Agriculture in Virginia

Prior to the establishment of the Portici Plantation, agriculture had become an important industry for European colonists throughout the Northern Neck of Virginia. During the colonial period land tenants cultivated most of the land, managed through lease agreements with the land holders.

After colonists and the Iroquois Nation signed the Treaty of Albany in 1722, the population of European settlers in the Virginia Piedmont region began to swell. Tobacco cultivation quickly became the primary source of wealth for colonial planters in the Northern Neck, fueling colonial development in the area. Colonists also supplemented their cash crops with produce, livestock, and timber woodlots.

In 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in the Chesapeake aboard a ship carrying people from West Africa and various Caribbean islands. Following this, Virginia became increasingly reliant on labor from enslaved people for agricultural production, a transition from the previous agricultural labor force that largely consisted of indentured servants. While both systems exploited human labor, indentured servitude differed from enslavement in several ways.

Indentured servants in Virginia and throughout the colonies were primarily born in the British Isles and had entered a contract to sell labor for a pre-determined period of time. This contractual agreement was often legally coerced and targeted debtors, felons, or other vulnerable populations. However, there were also people who voluntarily agreed to enter the indenture. These indentures also held the promise of freedom at the end of the contract, though the contracts could be extended as part of a sentenced punishment.
Enslavement, however, describes the involuntary labor of human beings, predominantly of African birth or descent, made to work for the profit of their enslavers. Enslavement offered limited and infrequent chances to obtain freedom, with the vast majority of enslaved people remaining so for life. Enslavers would often exercise violent and dehumanizing physical and verbal abuse on those they enslaved as a means of control and forced assimilation. After 1619, enslaved Black people gradually began to outnumber indentured servants as the primary means of labor in Chesapeake. By the establishment of the Portici Plantation, enslaved people made up the majority of the agricultural labor force in Virginia.

Despite this disenfranchisement, enslaved people continued to express personal agency and maintain connections to their African cultural heritage. Traditions and materials evolved and were passed down to later generations born in the United States. For example, there is evidence that enslaved people at Portici in the mid-19th century, the majority of whom would have been born in North America, played a game of Egyptian origin called “mancala.” Additionally, enslaved people would often create gardens and grow food to supplement the insufficient rations provided by enslavers. Any surplus from these gardens were occasionally used to barter with or trade between other enslaved people within their plantations and neighboring ones. This created an inter-plantation microeconomy that was managed and organized by enslaved people exclusively. This income was able to be used by a small number of enslaved individuals for the purchase of manumission, granting them legal freedom in colonial Virginia.

A colored photograph of a grassy field with a line of trees in the background and heavy cloud cover in the sky.
Agricultural field in hay cultivation in the Portici cultural landscape, facing northwest.

NPS/Jones 2021

Development of the Portici Plantation

The Portici Plantation was preceded by another plantation on the same property, known as the Pohoke Plantation. The origins of the name are unknown, but the Pohoke refers to a dwelling built on the property by a tenant farmer sometime around 1733. Tenant farmers rented the property and house until Spencer Ball (1762-1832) and his wife Elizabeth “Betty” Landon Carter Ball (1768-1842) occupied it in 1802. Betty Ball was the sister of the landowner, George Carter (1777-1846), and descendant of the Carter family who had maintained land holdings over the area since the 1650s.

After building their first plantation in the area sometime around 1653, members of the Carter family had acquired extensive land rights encompassing the Great (Upper), Middle, and Lower Bull Run Tracts of the Northern Neck, and members of this family had granted leases to the tenants on the Pohoke Plantation. Portici was built in the Lower Tract which had been passed on to two generations of Carter heirs and subsequently atomized before reaching the hands of George Carter.
Black and white map with an intersection of two arterial roads at the center and cut through with streams. The Bull Run is drawn along the right-hand edge of the map
Map depicting King Carter’s Bull Run Tracts about 1729 as the boundaries crossed through present-day Manassas National Battlefield Park. A blue arrow (bottom middle) points to present-day Youngs Branch, which served as the northern boundary of the Lower Tract. The location of the Portici property is circled by the blue, dashed line.

Figure from McGarry, “Manassas Historic Sites Survey: Manassas National Battlefield Park, Virginia,” 1982. (NPS Electronic Technical Information Center (eTIC) https://pubs.etic.nps.gov/, accessed 2021).

Spencer Ball replaced Pohoke when he built a new Georgian style house on the property that would eventually be named Portici. Georgian style plantations were typical for this period, characterized by the main dwelling located on elevated ground surrounded by ornamental plantings. This design intentionally contrasted with the surrounding agricultural landscape, and the high visibility was used to reinforce the hierarchical relationship between plantation owner and the enslaved laborers.

In addition to a large house for the plantation owner’s family, plantation landscapes held dwellings for the enslaved laborers which were typically located away from the main house. Although those quarters were present on Portici, it is likely that some of the enslaved people resided in the main building’s cellar as well. Compared to the main house, the enslaved quarters were built to be more temporary structures, likely as a means for enslavers to further highlight the social divide they were facilitating.
Historical drawing on sepia background depicting an oblique view of a log cabin in the foreground with figures in shadow and foliated trees in the background.
An example of an enslaved laborers’ cabin in the Virginia Piedmont drawn by Edwin Forbes in 1863. This cabin stood in Warrenton, Virginia in Fauquier County, which neighbors Prince William County to the west.

Forbes, Edwin. "Slave cabin near Warrenton, Va." 1963 Aug. 5. (Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/2004661591, accessed 2024).

Alfred Ball and Changing Agricultural Methods

When Spencer Ball died in 1832, he left the Portici plantation to his wife and willed ownership of several people he had enslaved to his six children. Of those, his will directly names Robert “son of Aggy”, Armistead, Sukey “daughter of Chloe” and her child, Maria “Sally’s daughter” and her child, Polly and her children (Prince William County Circuit Court 1832: WB N, p. 426). Spencer and Betty Ball’s only surviving son, Alfred, inherited the property after Betty passed away in 1842.

During both Alfred and his parents’ management of Portici, the population of the Commonwealth of Virginia had been declining. After the international importation of enslaved people was banned in 1808, a domestic slave trade economy developed. Enslavers in and around Virginia started to sell the people they enslaved to southern Gulf States which had a growing agricultural industry. During the Ball family’s management of Portici, the population of enslaved people in Virginia went from just over 40 percent of the population to just under 30 percent.
Historical map depicting the counties in northeastern Virginia. The map's shading gradient depicts counties with fewer enslaved people as lighter and more enslaved people as darker.
Detail of an 1861 map showing the percentage of the population of each county in Virginia that was enslaved according to the 1860 census. The blue arrow points to Prince William County, where this percentage is given as 29.3 (slightly higher than the 28 percent derived by researchers in 2003).

Graham, H. S, and E Hergesheimer. "Map of Virginia: showing the distribution of its slave population from the census of 1860," 1861. (Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2010586922/, accessed 2024).

Declining soil quality due to unsustainable agricultural practice also contributed to this exodus. This led to the introduction of new cultivation techniques such as diversifying crops, deeper plowing, crop rotation, and implementing methods of fertilization.

The declining soil qualities shifted the primary staple crop from tobacco to less labor-intensive crops like grains. This allowed for enslaved people to develop professional skills outside of cultivation. Tending to draft animals, smithing, and construction were some of the more frequent specializations. Enslaved women on the Portici plantation often spun wool or flax and crafted garments for the Ball family and other enslaved laborers. Enslaved people on Portici also engaged in crafts related to leather tanning, carpentry, and maintaining an apiary.

The Civil War and Portici

Francis “Frank” Waring Lewis (1822-1913), the nephew of Alfred Ball, owned Portici by the time of the Civil War. Frank Lewis continued to operate the plantation similarly to Alfred Ball, growing mostly the same crops and using enslaved labor. With the outbreak of the Civil War, the landscape surrounding Portici became a clear area for potential conflict.
Contemporary map showing the trajectory of troop movements with blue and red arrows. The blue arrows in the north represent Union troops and the red arrows in the south represent Confederate troops.
Troop movement map showing phase three of the First Battle of Manassas and the Union troops’ route of retreat. The blue, dashed line circles the location of Portici plantation.

“Draft General Management Plan, Environmental Impact Statement,” 2005. (NPS Electronic Technical Information Center (eTIC), https://pubs.etic.nps.gov/, accessed 2021).

After receiving a warning from Confederate forces that a battle would break out, Frank Lewis fled the Portici plantation, taking himself and his family to the “Snow Hill” plantation where his wife, Frances “Fannie” Adeline Stuart (1828-1899), had been raised. The Lewis family left behind 11 people that they enslaved, expecting them to continue managing and looking after the plantation in their absence.


They took most of the furniture they could transport to Snow Hill and stored valuables with their neighbor James Robinson (1799-1875). Robinson was a free Black man who owned the neighboring farm, he is also thought to be a biological member of the Carter family giving him familial ties to the Lewis’s.
Historical map depicting a farm adjacent to a stream running along the ride side of the image. Hills, fields, and roads are depicted, as are troop positions denoted with red, rectangular boxes.
Detail of an 1861 map showing one of two possible configurations of the farm roads at the Portici plantation during the Civil War. The blue arrow points to the Portici main house cluster. Historic maps also indicate areas used for crops, orchards, and pasture.

“Map of the Battle Ground of Manassas from Actual Surveys by an Officer of General Beauregard's Staff Showing the Exact Position Occupied by Federal & Rebel Forces in the Battle of 21st July 1861,” 1861. NPS/Manassas National Battlefield Park Archives.

War officially reached Portici on July 21, 1861, with the eruption of the First Battle of Manassas. During this battle the vacated plantation house was used by Confederate forces as a headquarters. As the battle ended with a Confederate victory, the Portici house was repurposed as a field hospital for Confederate troops, and Confederate forces occupied a portion of the plantation in a winter encampment.

The Second Battle of Manassas broke out on August 28, 1862, and mostly took place outside of the Portici cultural landscape. Although contradicting oral histories blur the exact date, the Portici main house burned down sometime after this battle and before the end of the war. The surrounding landscape and neighboring farms were severely damaged from both the fighting and neglect during the war.

Reconstruction and Beyond

The Lewis family returned to Portici in 1865 and rebuilt the main house on the same ridge as the earlier building. With the emancipation of the formerly enslaved population, the agriculture industry in Virginia was transformed. Production on the Portici farm was scaled down, with Frank Lewis selling off portions of his property over the following decades. This was a common trend throughout Manassas as smaller farms began to replace the larger plantations which had been built by enslaved labor.
A black and white photo with a field in the foreground, a fence in the middle ground, and a row of trees in the background.
Photograph taken north of the Ball Family Cemetery facing northeast looking over a cornfield on Portici farm.

“Photographs taken at the maneuvers near Manassas, Va., September 1904,” 1904. (Library of Congress, https://lccn.loc.gov/2005687979, accessed 2021).

Frank Lewis managed the Portici farm until his death in 1913, after which time the Portici farm was divided between his four children. The Portici cultural landscape was subsequently farmed by members of the Lewis family until Frank Lewis’s granddaughter Fannie Tasker Lewis Lee (1852-1931) sold her portion of the land to Carol Homola Aldrich (1914-2007) and her husband in 1947. Frank Lewis’s grandson, Robert Lee Lewis, Jr. (1893-1983), later sold his portion of the Portici farm to a man named William Henry Wheeler (1911-1980) in 1950, marking the final descendant of the Carter family to manage the land. Wheeler, in tandem with a business partner named Thomas Pearson, ran a successful dairy farm on the land following a trend towards dairy production across Prince William County.

A black and white photograph showing a field in the foreground and a stand of trees and a number of farm buildings in the middle ground.
View of the Fannie Lee Henry Tract including the dwelling, outbuildings, and fields, facing northeast. The property was purchased by the NPS in 1936.

“Fannie Lee Henry House MNBP,” 1941. NPS/Manassas National Military Park Archives.

A black and white aerial photograph showing agricultural fields, roads, streams, and a building cluster.
A 1980 aerial showing the Portici farm. The blue dashed lines circle the buildings and structures associated with the Wheeler dairy barn, which included Portici III.

“Aerial Photography,” 1980. Fairfax County Government.

Eventually the National Park Service (NPS) acquired tracts from both the Aldrich family and Wheeler as the boundaries of Manassas National Battlefield Park expanded. Upon acquisition of the properties, part of the Portici cultural landscape was under lease to a turf company who maintained sod harvesting rights until 1996. As recently as 2021, NPS entered a 10-year agricultural lease on 117 acres of what used to be the Portici farm for the production and harvesting of hay, continuing the long-standing agricultural legacy on the land.

A colored photograph showing an open field with a shed and trees in the distance.
The Wheeler-era equipment shed and adjacent hayfields in the Portici cultural landscape, facing north.

NPS/Jones 2021

Quick Facts

  • Cultural Landscape Type: Historic Vernacular Landscape, Historic Site

  • National Register Significance Level: National

  • National Register Criteria: A, D

A - Military use during the Civil War.

A - Commemorating and memorializing the First and Second Battles of Manassas.

A - An example of a Virginia Piedmont plantation prior to the Civil War and a farm following the conflict.

D - For its potential to yield archeological data pertaining to Virginia Northern Piedmont agricultural practices and social history and the Civil War..

  • Periods of Significance: 1861-1865, 1733-1936, 1936-1944


Landscape Links

The original documentation this information was gathered from was heavily informed by the work compiled in the archeological report entitled Portici: Portrait of a Middling Plantation in Piedmont Virginia (1990) prepared by Kathleen A. Parker and Jacqueline L. Hernigle; Coming to Manassas: Peace, War, and the Making of a Virginia Community (2003) prepared by Linda Sargent Wood and Richard Rabinowitz; and Archeological Overview and Assessment Manassas National Battlefield Pre-Draft (2018) prepared by John Bedell and Kisa Hooks.

A GIF shows three aerial images of an agricultural landscape in 1937, 1953, and 2024.
Aerial images show the Portici cultural landscape and surroundings in 1937, 1953, and 2024.

Fairfax County Government, Google Earth

Tags

Manassas National Battlefield Park

Last updated: October 10, 2024