You'll probably need a GPS to find Berkeley Plantation. It’s located between Richmond and Williamsburg, Virginia, off the rural John Tyler Memorial Highway. About a mile down a remote gravel drive, this property is a hidden treasure trove of significant American events. The area around Charles City County is dripping with colonial, presidential, and Civil War history.
Chock-full of History
The privately owned house on 1,000 acres, originally 8,000 acres, was built in 1726 by Benjamin Harrison IV. Proof of this fact is over a side door that faces the wide James River. A crude, barely legible, carved stone with the initials B., H., and A., 1726, marks the date that Harrison and his bride, Anne (Carter), established the house that would end up being the home to four more generations of Benjamin Harrisons.Permeated with the spicy scent of numerous boxwoods, a staple shrub brought by English settlers to the New World, Berkeley’s grounds include not just the main three-story brick house, but also two identical two-story stucco structures. that flank the house. Both are built in the Georgian style. One was used as a guest and schooling house and the other was a kitchen and laundry.
An enthusiastic tour guide, Sudie Halder, explained that although the main Harrison mansion is almost 300 years old, important American history began occurring in the area in 1619, when a group of English settlers traveled across the Atlantic and up the James River via a ship called Margaret.
On Dec. 4, 1619, settlers at Berkeley Hundred—named for an English castle—celebrated America’s first Thanksgiving. Although the 1621 Thanksgiving celebration in Plymouth, Massachusetts, became the official “first” Thanksgiving, President John F. Kennedy acknowledged both the Massachusetts and Virginia events in 1962. A framed Nov. 30, 1962 White House-postmarked letter from Kennedy’s special assistant, John Wicker Jr., is hung on the wall of the main house at Berkeley. It testifies to this assertion.
Settlers were attacked during the Second Anglo-Powhatan War in 1622. The survivors decided to move to Jamestown, Virginia, for protection. The next time the land was inhabited was when Benjamin Harrison III purchased the property in 1691 for tobacco cultivation. Large ships picked up the cash crop at Harrison’s Landing, and, thus, Harrison III also operated one of the nations’ first commercial shipyards.
When his son, Harrison IV, reached adulthood, he commissioned the construction of an impressive Georgian-style mansion out of property-made bricks. The next heir to the clan, Harrison V, was born in the house. His legacy was to become a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
Full of History
In 1781, the infamous American traitor Benedict Arnold ordered British troops to plunder Berkeley Plantation and burn the house’s contents in a bonfire on the grounds.Harrison VI befriended Thomas Jefferson, who visited the house on more than one occasion and lent his architectural advice for the renovation of a few rooms. At some point, Harrison VI carved his name, and the abbreviation “Esq,” into a plaster wall in the South Great Room. This signature is glassed over for visitors to view.
Benjamin Harrison VI’s famous brother born in the mansion was William Henry Harrison, who went to the Ohio wilderness (officially called “Northwest Territory”) as a young man to serve in the military. He eventually became the 9th president of the United States in 1841. However, he contracted pneumonia after his long inauguration address on a cold March day. He died 31 days later. His term was the shortest of any American president.
Benjamin Harrison VII faced financial difficulties, resulting in unpaid loans passed onto Benjamin Harrison VIII, who was unable to pay them and subsequently lost the long-held generational property.
But another historical milestone took place in 1862, when Union troops occupied the former Harrison house. Bars were added to the basement to set up a jail for Confederates. The first-floor, naturally lit rooms served as a hospital and surgery.
Most importantly, a young Union bugler named Oliver Norton came up with a new tune, with help from Gen. Daniel Butterfield, called “Taps.” It was written and played for the first time at Harrison’s Landing during the Civil War.
While walking around the many acres of Berkeley Plantation, sitting in the octagon gazebo, seeing where cargo was unloaded at Harrison Landing, and gazing upon the Harrison cemetery, it’s easy to appreciate this place’s importance. The out-of-the-way Berkeley Plantation is momentous enough that several of the nation’s first presidents were guests there. Because a family restored and preserved the property in the early 1900s, this private home and museum can be appreciated by current and future generations as well.
