plantation house
A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and ...
and farm complex located near
Tyro
In Greek mythology, Tyro () was an Elean princess who later became Queen of Iolcus.
Tyro was the daughter of King Salmoneus of Elis and Alcidice. She married her uncle, King Cretheus of Iolcus, and had three sons with him, and also bore twin s ...
,
Nelson County, Virginia
Nelson County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 14,775. Its county seat is Lovingston. Nelson County is part of the Charlottesville, VA, Metropolitan Statist ...
. The main house was built between 1814 and 1816 using slave labor, and is a one-story, 11 bay, linear, single-pile, Federal style, frame manor house. It has a standing seam metal gable roof and features a three-bay porch with a gable roof. It was enlarged in the mid-19th century to its current T-shaped plan. Also on the property are the contributing kitchen / laundry / slave hospital (1834),
icehouse
Icehouse or ice house may refer to:
* Ice house (building), a building where ice is stored
* Ice shanty, a shelter for ice fishing also known as an ''Icehouse''
* Ice rink, a facility for ice skating.
* Ice hockey arena, an area where ice hockey i ...
/ School (c. 1834), crib barn (c. 1830),
smokehouse
A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is curing (food preservation), cured with Smoking (cooking), smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.privy (c. 1814). Also on the property are the sites of a commercial smokehouse (c. 1830) and mill (c. 1830). an ''Accompanying four photos'' /ref>
It was listed 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 ...
in 2009.
Slavery
The property was ordered constructed by American planter and Revolutionary War veteran
Thomas Massie
Thomas Harold Massie (born January 13, 1971) is an American politician and engineer. A member of the Republican Party, Massie has been the United States representative for Kentucky's 4th congressional district since 2012. The district covers ...
as a wedding present for his son William Massie (1795-1862) and his first wife, Sarah Steptoe (1796-1828). At the height of ownership, William owned close to 200 enslaved
African-Americans
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. ...
who lived in twenty-five slave quartering buildings on the property. At William's death, there were 154 enslaved people living at Pharsalia who then fell into possession of his fourth wife, Maria Catherine Effinger (1814-1889), and his children. William began slave record keeping in 1815 after being gifted his first twenty-one slaves from his father and an additional amount from his first father-in-law, James Steptoe.
Those enslaved at Pharsalia produced wheat, oats, hemp, tobacco, potatoes, bacon, whiskey, wool, apples, and other crops, and raised animals for the Massie family. William was also a prominent slave barterer, breeder, and seller in addition to owner, keeping meticulous records on those enslaved at Pharsalia and the crops they produced, and occasionally would detail their lives including their deaths and if they were sold and why in his "Negro Book." Over the course of his ownership of Pharsalia, William maintained numerous bills of sale for enslaved men, women, and children, many of whom were related and were thus separated from their family members upon sale.
Women and girls who were enslaved at Pharsalia were forced to have children as young as fourteen years old and would be forced to continue to have children for up to thirty years after; giving birth every one to two years. The higher the rates of survival for their births, the longer they were used by the Massie family for breeding.
In 1859, three years before his death, William Massie recorded that he had 62 enslaved people working in the fields who earned him an average of $81.41 yearly each—an amount totaling $5,047.42 or the equivalent of $181,226.70 as of 2023.
Civil War
During 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 ...
, Pharsalia was opened to
Confederate
A confederation (also known as a confederacy or league) is a political union of sovereign states united for purposes of common action. Usually created by a treaty, confederations of states tend to be established for dealing with critical issu ...
troops for quartering and feeding by William's widow, Maria Effinger, who provided Confederate soldiers in the region food and shelter. Maria also contracted enslaved people at the Pharsalia plantation for laboring and impressment on Confederate fortifications, for horse maintenance and goods production during the war.