Research

This webpage links to primary and secondary historical sources recently published or shared online by the Louisa County Historical Society, including by Society-affiliated researchers in the descendant community; written recently from academic or descendant-community perspectives and published; or researched recently by the National Park Service.

This page is intended as a sampler for historical reference, about past residents and events within what is today the Green Springs National Historic Landmark District in Louisa County, not a comprehensive, historical overview nor a listing of all relevant websites and primary or secondary historical sources for the Landmark District. Not implied below is the presence or absence of an NPS-held conservation easement there, nor any specific, easement stipulations or management considerations. See the Maps page for introductory guidance regarding easements.

Not listed here are the websites, searchable and readily available online, maintained by the owners of Green Springs National Historic Landmark District properties and describing their individual property histories, resources, services or goals, locations, and contact information. Likewise not listed here is information on tribal history or tribal connections to or tribal perspectives on the Landmark District and its resources and significance, information also searchable if shared online by tribes.

 

Slavery, Slave Places, and Freedom Places

• Tony Grooms, “Slave Houses at Green Springs, VA” Shared here with permission of the author. First publication in Atlanta Magazine. May 2004, p. 96. Reprinted in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V: Georgia. William Wright, ed. Texas Review Press, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, TX. December 2012. Tony Grooms, M.F.A, is Professor of Creative Writing & Director of the M.A. in Professional Writing, Kennesaw State University. Reprinted below.
• Amy Feely Morsman, The Big House after Slavery: Virginia Plantation Families and Their Postbellum Domestic Experiment. Amy Feely Morsman, PhD., is Professor of History and Director, First Year Seminar Program, Middlebury College.
• African American Research in Louisa County Before 1870
• Mapping Slavery Documents Storymap, including Louisa County documents
• Louisa County documents in the Land Between the Rivers archive
• Will the Stones Whisper Their Names?
• Interactive overlay-map of 1860’s Louisa County, including of lands within the future Green Springs National Historic Landmark District

 

The Camp Creek Settlement of the Religious Society of Friends

• Minister Jane Hoggat Represents the Camp Creek Meeting at the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, 1749
• The Camp Creek Meeting Calls for a Prohibition on Slave-Hiring by Friends, 1773

Friends Visit the Camp Creek Settlement, and Describe it within the Context of a Regional Network, 1754-1789:

• Friend William Hunt Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1754
• Friend John Woolman Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1757
• Friend William Reckitt Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1757
• Friend Benjamin Ferris Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1764
• Friend Joshua Brown Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1778
• Friend Hugh Judge Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1784
• Friend Job Scott Visits the Camp Creek Settlement, 1789
  

 

The Slave Houses at Green Springs, Virginia

The hills, the round-capped hills of sea-green hay
And the gabled farm houses with curving cedar-lined drives--
They are here. St. John’s Chapel with stained glass, ginger
lace eaves and trumpet vine wound
Around its fence seems ephemeral. But it is still here.

The Green Springs Spa has dried up, but the deep
Wood of oak, ivy, jewelweed in the marshes,
The one lane bridge on the gravel road through
Groves of Osage orange, and bordering the fields,
The Queen Anne’s lace, they are all still here as it was.

Ionia, Sylvania, and Prospect Hill, the handsome
Manor houses are marked by Eighteenth century
Charm. With chimneys Georgian balanced, they stand
On their lawns like monuments. In the sky,
Fair-weather cumulus.

And the slave houses are here, too, in all
This charm that could not have been
Without slaves. At Noland’s you see them,
One-windowed shanties, painted now, the slaves
Gone. But not gone far.

"Slave Houses at Green Springs, VA." Atlanta Magazine. May 2004, p. 96.
Reprinted in The Southern Poetry Anthology, Volume V:
Georgia. William Wright, ed. Texas Review Press, Sam Houston State
University, Huntsville, TX. December 2012.