Ben Venue slave cabins, a reminder of crossroads’ past

It does not take much imagination to absorb history when you’re standing on the corner of U.S. Route 211 and Richmond Road. As you head north, as Richmond Road becomes Ben Venue Road, the three well-built, well-preserved brick slave cabins are a reminder of the nation’s past.

These cabins have been a labor of love by Heidi Eastham, who refers to the property her family has owned since 1805 as “she.”

“I think that this farm is incredibly benevolent in the sense that she just keeps on inspiring us,” Eastham says. “We get inspired everyday to keep just working, making a living and sharing it. I think the spirit is a benevolent spirit.”

Teira Doom, 67, who grew up in D.C., and now lives in southern California, also has a family connection to Ben Venue Farm, as the Eastham’s property is known. Doom’s half-sister’s paternal grandmother was born in one of these cabins and that woman’s mother, she believes, was a slave — Maria Fletcher, born in 1857.

When visiting the cabins in 1996, Doom says she was overcome. “I’ve been there a couple of times, but I went there and it was just a stunning feeling that comes over you. You can feel the people, you can feel their energy, you can see them. The ghosts are all there.”

What makes the three cabins unique, other than they are still standing, is that they match the main house aesthetically and structurally. Both the main house and the cabins were built from brick sourced on the property.

“It was built with the same architecture that was used on a main house, that’s where it’s rare,” says Lindsay Eastham. “If you go down to Madison [county], there would be wooden sheds. Here the architect, [James Leake] Powers, made this part of that and the same.” Between 1805 and the 1840s, Powers also was the architect of the Washington Town Hall and Trinity Episcopal Church there. It’s been written that he also worked with Thomas Jefferson at the University of Virginia.

Some say sturdier, well-vented cabins, with brick fireplaces, were built to keep the slaves more comfortable. “Because slaves were considered a valuable commodity, owners took more interest realizing that crude utilitarian shacks would not enhance the health or productivity of the slaves,” Doom says on her genealogy website, back2past.com. 

Another reason was to show their wealth.

“Those cabins are late antebellum and in part of what that implies is that they’re pretty nice structures,” says John Tole, president of the Rappahannock Historical Society, who championed the 33 Civil War historical markers around the county. “Usually, earlier slave structures were pretty primitive, like wooden log cabins with dirt floors and so forth. Brick cabins usually occurred later and closer to the Civil War. And they imply that the owner is wealthy and they put the cabins out in front of the property to display their wealth,” he says.

“Brick is a little more secure than wood, and which is why they held up for so long. It’s really a quite sophisticated living development for slaves, they probably had a little better than the wood structures of that time. And they last longer,” says Doom. “ It is an amazing thing that they lasted so long. And let me say this, slavery wasn’t that long ago; if I can tell you that my great-grandparents were slaves, my maternal great-grandparents were slaves, that’s not that long ago.”

Judy Tole, executive director of the historical society, said the Eastham family was critical to the county. “It’s just a wonderful place there, that is so representative of the county. And when you stand at the [Civil War marker] spot at Greg Williams’ place and look around you, it’s just such a beautiful picture with a big house and slave cabins, and then the mountains.” 

Heidi encourages people to see the structures in person, to visit the website and contact her for a visit. 

Rappahannock County has 33 Civil War markers, signs with information about the history on the piece of land in front of you. Ben Venue is among the highlights, with two of the markers, “Twilight of Slavery,” featuring the three cabins, and “Gaines’s Crossroads,” memorializing the 70,000 Confederate troops who marched up Richmond Road and through Ben Venue on their way to Gettysburg in 1863. (The previous year, Robert Gould Shaw passed through the crossroads as well. Gould was in command of the first all-black regiment, the 54th Massachusetts, that was featured in the 1989 film “Glory,” with Matthew Broderick and Denzel Washington.)

By Luke Christopher — for Foothills Forum

SHARE YOUR STORIES

If you have a personal connection to any of the markers in the county and want to tell your story, please email [email protected].

OTHER MARKERS OF NOTE

• Battle Mountain: Custer’s Early “Last Stand”

• Dangerfield Newby: A Tragic Journey to Harpers Ferry

• Chester Gap: Gateway to the Shenandoah Valley

GOING DEEPER

For more information on the 33 markers in the county visit Civil War Trails, the county visitors’s center or contact John Tole at Rappahannock Historical Society, Tole also teaches about the Civil War in Rappahannock at RappCE.