Pharsalia

Pharsalia is a historic plantation house and farm complex located near Tyro in Nelson County, Virginia, United States. The main house was built between 1814 and 1816 using enslaved labor, and is a one-story, eleven-bay, linear, single-pile, Federal-style frame manor house with a standing seam metal gable roof and a three-bay porch with a gable roof. It was enlarged in the mid-nineteenth century to its current T-shaped plan. The property also includes contributing outbuildings: a kitchen/laundry/slave hospital (1834), an icehouse/school (c. 1834), a crib barn (c. 1830), a smokehouse (1814), a weaving room (c. 1814), several slave quarters (c. 1814, 1834), and a privy (c. 1814). The sites of a commercial smokehouse (c. 1830) and a mill (c. 1830) are also on the property. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The property was ordered constructed by American planter and Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Massie 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 who lived in twenty-five slave quartering buildings on the property. At William's death, 154 enslaved people lived at Pharsalia and then fell into the 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 number 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 detailing 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. During the American Civil War, Pharsalia was opened to Confederate 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.

Pharsalia is a historic plantation house and farm complex located near Tyro, Nelson County, Virginia. The main house was built between 1814 and 1816 using enslaved labor, and is a one-story, eleven-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-nineteenth century to its current T-shaped plan. The property also includes contributing outbuildings: a kitchen/laundry/slave hospital (1834), an icehouse/school (c. 1834), a crib barn (c. 1830), a smokehouse (1814), a weaving room (c. 1814), several slave quarters (c. 1814, 1834), and a privy (c. 1814). The sites of a commercial smokehouse (c. 1830) and a mill (c. 1830) are also on the property. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009. The property was ordered constructed by American planter and Revolutionary War veteran Thomas Massie 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 who lived in twenty-five slave quartering buildings on the property. At William's death, 154 enslaved people lived at Pharsalia and then fell into the 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 number 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 detailing 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. During the American Civil War, Pharsalia was opened to Confederate 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.

• 2009

  Pharsalia listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

• 1862

  William Massie dies; 154 enslaved people pass to his fourth wife, Maria Catherine Effinger, and his children.

• 1859

  William Massie records 62 enslaved field workers earning him an average of $81.41 yearly each.

• 1834

  Kitchen/laundry/slave hospital and icehouse/school built; additional slave quarters constructed.

• 1830

  Crib barn, commercial smokehouse, and mill built around this time.

• 1816

  Main house completed.

• 1814

  Construction of the main house begins; smokehouse, weaving room, slave quarters, and privy built around this time.

1. 1Pharsalia (Tyro, Virginia) - Wikipediaen.wikipedia.org
2. 2Pharsalia - Wikidatawikidata.org