Brookfield (plantation)

Brookfield plantation, drawing for an 1806 Mutual Assurance Policy

Brookfield Plantation was an about 2,000 acre plantation in Henrico County, Virginia in the late 18th and 19th-centuries. It was first owned by the Prosser family and it is where Gabriel Prosser planned Gabriel's Rebellion of 1800.[1] It is one of several lost historical buildings of the county,[2] and it is near Bon Air, Virginia and Bryan Park in Richmond, Virginia.[3][4]

## Gabriel's Rebellion

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Gabriel Prosser, a black preacher, planned a slave rebellion for 1800 that was named after him Gabriel's Rebellion. The plan was thwarted due to a "torrential thunderstorm" and when two enslaved men from the Sheppard family of nearby Meadow Farm sounded the alarm of the upcoming plot. Gabriel and other key individuals who planned the rebellion were tried and hanged.[1]

## The plantation

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Brookfield was located near Brook Creek and about six miles north of Richmond.[5] The main house was initially a large two-story frame building with a 5 bay structure and one-story wings.[1] There were large porches on the front and back of the house. Behind the main house were a kitchen, a weaving house, two barns, sheds, stables, and a blacksmith shop.[5]

It was replaced in the mid-19th century with a "grander" residence that burned down in 1910. The replacement was a two-story frame building. It had Corinthian columns and a hexastyle pedimented portico. Two bronze lions that had been on either side of the front steps are now in the yard of a house on Chamberlayne Avenue.[1]

## Ownership

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### Thomas Prosser

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Brookfield was first owned by Thomas Prosser,[1] who was a tobacco planter with 53 enslaved people, member of the House of Burgesses, and a partner of Alexander Front and Company, a trading firm in Richmond. He was also a vestryman at the St. John's Episcopal Church.[5] He had a quick temper and in the 1760s he was ejected from the House of Burgesses. Patrick Henry represented him and was able to have his seat reinstated. He and his wife Ann had two children, Elizabeth and a much younger Thomas Henry who was born in 1776. Elizabeth married Thomas Goode in 1777.[5] Prosser died in 1798 and Thomas Henry Prosser took over managing the Brookfield plantation.[6]

### Other owners

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Between 1806 and 1815, it was sold to Benjamin Sheppard. The house was then owned by the Dicken family.[1]

## References

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1. ^ a b c d e f "Lost Architecture - All Sites". Henrico County Historical Society of Virginia. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
2. ^ "Lost Architecture - Brookfield Plantation". Henrico County Historical Society of Virginia. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
3. ^ "Brookfield Home". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
4. ^ "Gabriel's Rebellion to Have Lasting Marker". Style Weekly. Retrieved 2021-05-18.
5. ^ a b c d Egerton, Douglas R. (1993). Gabriel's Rebellion: The Virginia Slave Conspiracies of 1800 and 1802. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 18\. ISBN 0807844225.
6. ^ Tucker, Spencer C. (2014-06-11). The Encyclopedia of the Wars of the Early American Republic, 1783–1812: A Political, Social, and Military History [3 volumes]: A Political, Social, and Military History. ABC-CLIO. p. 556\. ISBN 978-1-59884-157-2.

37°36′9.52″N 77°30′42.95″W﻿ / ﻿37.6026444°N 77.5119306°W﻿ / 37.6026444; -77.5119306

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History of slavery in Virginia

* Slavery in the colonial history of the United States
* History of Virginia

Enslaved people|

* Angela (fl. 1619–1625)
* Henry Box Brown (c. 1815–1897)
* Anthony Burns (1834–1862)
* John Casor (living 1655)
* Emanuel Driggus (c. 1620s-d. 1673)
* Olaudah Equiano (c. 1745–1797)
* Isabella Gibbons (c. 1836–1890)
* William D. Gibbons (1825–1886)
* John Graweere (living 1641)
* Elizabeth Key Grinstead (Greenstead) (1630–1665)
* Left, husband of Jane Webb (fl. 1704–1727)
* Mary and Anthony Johnson (1600–1670)
* Philip Lee (c. 1785–?)
* Dangerfield Newby (c. 1820–1859)
* John Punch (fl. 1630s, living 1640)
* Gabriel Prosser (1776–1800)
* William Tucker (born 1624)
* Nat Turner (1800–1831)
* Booker T. Washington (1856–1915)

Slave owners|

* Presidents of the United States
* Washington
* Jefferson
* Madison
* Monroe
* Tyler
* John Armfield (1797–1871)
* Carter Braxton (1736–1797)
* Landon Carter (1710–1778)
* Robert "King" Carter (1663–1732)
* Robert Carter III (1728–1804)
* Thomas Roderick Dew (1802–1846)
* Andrew Hunter (1804–1888)
* Robert M. T. Hunter (1809–1887)
* Eppa Hunton (1822–1908)
* Richard Bland Lee (1761–1827)
* William Mahone (1826–1895)
* George Mason (1725–1792)
* James M. Mason (1798–1871)
* John Page (1628–1692)
* Thomas Prosser (died 1798)
* Randolph family of Virginia
* William Barton Rogers (1804–1882)
* George Henry Thomas (1816–1870)
* William Tucker (died 1642)
* John Wayles (1715–1773)
* Henry A. Wise (1806–1876)
* Seth Woodroof (1805–1875)

Plantations|

* Beall-Air
* Berry Hill
* Brookfield
* Kenmore
* Monticello
* Montpelier
* Mount Airy
* Mount Vernon (enslaved people)
* Oatlands
* Poplar Forest
* Shirley
* Stratford Hall
* Tuckahoe
* Westover
* Woodlawn
* List of plantations in Virginia

Slave pens|

* Bruin's Slave Jail
* The Cage
* Franklin and Armfield Office
* Lumpkin's Jail

Other sites|

* African American Burial Ground
* Bremo Slave Chapel
* Memorial to Enslaved Laborers
* White House of the Confederacy

Legal history|

* Virginia Slave Codes of 1705
* Virginia v. John Brown

Revolts|

* Gabriel's Rebellion
* Nat Turner's Rebellion
* John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry

Related articles|

* The 1619 Project
* Atlantic Creole
* Burning of Winchester Medical College
* Coastwise slave trade
* First Africans in Virginia
* Indentured servitude in Virginia
* District of Columbia retrocession
* Great Dismal Swamp maroons
* Human trafficking in Virginia
* Liberation and Freedom Day
* Richmond slave market
* Virginia in the American Civil War

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