Edmund Ruffin Plantation

The Edmund Ruffin Plantation, also known as Marlbourne, is a U.S. National Historic Landmark in Hanover County, Virginia, 11 miles (18 km) northeast of Richmond.

Marlbourne
LocationU.S. Route 360, Hanover County, Virginia
Nearest cityRichmond, Virginia
Coordinates37°39′15.13″N 77°13′20.92″W
Built1843
NRHP reference No.66000837
VLR No.042-0020
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966[1]
Designated NHLDJuly 19, 1964[2]
Designated VLRSeptember 9, 1969[3]

History

Built in 1840, the plantation was purchased in 1843 by Edmund Ruffin, a Virginia planter and a pioneer in agricultural improvements; he also published an agricultural journal in the 1840s named the Farmer's Register. One of a group of intellectuals they called "the sacred circle",[4] he worked to reform agriculture in the South, promoting crop rotation and soil conservation; he is considered to have been "the father of soil science" in the United States.[5] Ruffin experimented with agricultural methods and mixed marl, defined as "a friable earthy deposit consisting of clay and calcium carbonate, used esp. as a fertilizer for soils deficient in lime" to add to soils.

He and his friends: James Henry Hammond, Nathaniel Beverley Tucker, George Frederick Holmes, and William Gilmore Simms, were pro-slavery and promoted a moral reform of the South. They published numerous articles in literary and short-lived magazines, promoting a stewardship role for masters to improve conditions under slavery.[6][7]

Later Ruffin gained more attention as one of a number of secessionist fire-eaters; he traveled to South Carolina and is credited with firing one of the first shots at Fort Sumter in 1861. Despondent after General Lee's surrender in 1865, he left a note proclaiming his "unmitigated hatred to Yankee rule—to all political, social and business connections with Yankees, & to the perfidious, malignant, & vile Yankee race"[8] and committed suicide at Redmoor in Amelia County. He is buried on the grounds of Marlbourne.

His Marlbourne plantation was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1964.[2][9]

See also

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. January 23, 2007.
  2. "Marlbourne". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2007-12-29. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
  3. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Archived from the original on 21 September 2013. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  4. Charles B. Dew, "Review: 'A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellectual in the Old South, 1840-1860' by Drew Gilpin Faust", The Florida Historical Quarterly, Vol. 58, No. 4 (April 1980), pp. 445-447
  5. Ruffin, Edmund. Nature's Management: Writings on Landscape and Reform, 1822-1859, edited by Jack Temple Kirby, University of Georgia Press, 2006
  6. Drew Gilpin Faust, A Sacred Circle: The Dilemma of the Intellectual in the Old South, 1840-1860, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1977
  7. Drew Gilpin Faust, The Ideology of Slavery: Proslavery Thought in the Antebellum South, 1830--1860 (Google Ebook), LSU Press, 1981
  8. Walther, Eric (1992). The Fire-Eaters. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 228-. ISBN 0-8071-1775-7.
  9. Lissandrello, Stephen (December 16, 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Marlbourne (Edmund Ruffin Plantation)" (pdf). National Park Service. Cite journal requires |journal= (help) and Accompanying five photos, exterior, from c. 1970 (32 KB)
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