Somerset Place

Creswell, NC, 27928 US / NC

Location Description

Somerset Place is a representative historic site offering a comprehensive and realistic view of nineteenth-century life on a large-scale North Carolina plantation. Originally, this atypical plantation encompassed more than 100,000 densely wooded, predominantly swampy acres bordering Lake Phelps: a five-by-eight-mile body of water in present-day Washington County. During its 80-year tenure as an active plantation (1785-1865), hundreds of acres were converted into high yielding fields of rice, corn, oats, wheat, beans, peas, and flax; and sophisticated sawmills turned out thousands of feet of lumber. By 1865, Somerset Place had become one of the upper South's largest plantations. From Somerset's earliest days through the end of the Civil War, people of different races, legal, and economic statuses lived on the property. A labor force of almost 200 men, women, and children was assembled before 1790. They were black and white, enslaved and free. Over the life of the plantation there would be three generations of owners, around 50 white employees, two free black employees, and more than 850 enslaved people living and working on the plantation.

Related WebLink(s)

Website

Architecture Style

1800s / Civil War
1800s / Civil War
1800s / Civil War
Antebellum
Other

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