While we were ….
traveling the side roads …there was a stop we were looking for..in pic below …the Booker T Washington National Monument…At Smith Mountain St. Park in VA …The first thing we did was watch the movie about him in the Visitor Center…very interesting and informative…glad I did because I would not have learned much about his life just walking around…there were things to read along the way but I don’t have much time to stand and read…need to be moving…
If you click on the pic below you can read about this place…
This is believed to be a pic of the cabin that Booker T. Washington was born in… on the plantation that is now the National Monument.. born a slave right here….in 1856 on the Burroughs tobacco plantation…
Below is a reconstruction of the slave cabins of that time…These cabins were not very big..hard to imagine whole family's living in them…
A slave family…
And this is a pic of the plantation ….When I saw this pic …I was struck by the size of it…small…in comparison to what the movies portray of the plantations…and some others I have seen from a distance in the south…thinking I would like to visit a few plantations…I guess this was more of a farm than a plantation…I guess I should have paid better attention!
If you click on the pic below and look in the grass at the top straight across from the slave cabin you can see white/gray line that is what’s left … the foundation of the big house…also found it interesting how close the slave houses were to the big house…the house burned down in the 1950’s
And this is the tobacco barn..where they dried the tobacco…this was the cash crop of this plantation…...
Read about the cash crop here…click to enlarge…
They even had a small crop of tobacco growing so you could see what it looked like..along with some bottle gourds…I think there was some corn growing also..I just wanted to get a pic of the tobacco…we all know what corn looks like…
And here is a pic of the horse barn…they had a couple horses and some sheep in the pasture beside it…
The blacksmith shed…
Duck pond…
Turkey/hen house…
And the hog pen…see that big dude lying in the shade?…there was one lying in the dried mud also…
There was a lot more and I took more pics but due to the gigabyte situation I cant post anymore pics at this time…I need to pay better attention when I am visiting these places…I would not mind going back there and walking around again…if I were in the area… there were a couple trails but we didn’t hike any…I love history and this was great…just think a man born a slave …to be come the founder of the Tuskegee Institute! ….I am sitting still..in dads drive way…I am grateful that I am not in the cold snowy wet north…but I really need to get out and about… I feel like I am going stir crazy…Wed is dads 90th birthday…remember the hickory nuts I found for the cake I wanted to make him…well they never made it to FL…some how…at Chester State Park …a pesky squirrel got them…I found the shells out side the door way of the rig one morning…I had swept out the door way …and left the nuts sitting on the step…in a small blue bag…I am a little confused about why he shelled them there and then took the nuts and bag never to be seen again.…strange…Well all for now thanks for looking and come back soon…blessings to all…G&M
Oh what a shame about the nuts. You just can't leave anything remotely related to food outside in a campground or it will be gone the next day. I've never been to this state park so thanks for showing me what I've missed. Booker T. Washington was an amazing man.
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