Horton Grove was an area of houses for enslaved

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

s at the Bennehan-Cameron plantation complex, which included

Stagville Stagville Plantation is located in Durham County, North Carolina. With buildings constructed from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, Stagville was part of one of the largest plantation complexes in the American South. The entire ...

Plantation in the northeastern part of Durham County,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

. The slaves who lived at Horton Grove were held by the influential Bennehan and Cameron families. In 1860, 900 total slaves were held on the complex. The several structures still standing at Horton Grove are the only two-story slave residences remaining in

. The quarters at Horton Grove, which were constructed by slave craftsmen in the early 1850s, were the culmination of decades of gradual improvements at the plantation complex. The dwellings at Horton Grove represented the pinnacle of slave house development and include shuttered windows, multiple stories, brick chimneys, and raised stone foundations. These structures were occupied continuously until as late as the 1970s. After the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, many of the former slaves stayed on the property as

sharecroppers Sharecropping is a legal arrangement in which a landowner allows a tenant (sharecropper) to use the land in return for a share of the crops produced on that land. Sharecropping is not to be conflated with tenant farming, providing the tenant a ...

and continued to live in these dwellings. Because of its historic and architectural significance, Horton Grove was listed in 1978 on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

. Archaeological finds on the site have provided insight into continuing practices of African heritage at Stagville, including the presence of divining rods and communal cooking practices.

References

External links

Historic Stagville Foundation
- official site
Photos of Horton Grove
Houses in Durham County, North Carolina Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in North Carolina African-American history of North Carolina Open-air museums in North Carolina History museums in North Carolina African-American museums in North Carolina Museums in Durham County, North Carolina National Register of Historic Places in Durham County, North Carolina 1850 establishments in North Carolina Slave cabins and quarters in the United States History of slavery in North Carolina {{DurhamCountyNC-NRHP-stub