BUILDINGBUILDING BBELMEADELMEAD The Community History Workshop, 2010

Belmead is an extraordinary place. Located on the in Powhatan County, Virginia, it has long distinguished itself both architecturally and culturally from its surroundings. Philip St. George Cocke, who built Belmead, stood as one of the twenty largest slaveholders in the South. In 1845, Alexander Jackson Davis designed a Gothic Revival mansion at Belmead that departed radically from the conventions of classical-style plantation homes. Believing that the “irregular style” was “better adapted to Country houses than the more regular & formal Roman & Grecian styles,” Cocke built a home that occupied the vanguard of nineteenth-century picturesque Romanticism.

In the 1890s, Katharine Drexel, her sister Louise Drexel Morrell and Louise’s husband, Edward Morrell, all from Philadelphia, purchased Belmead. In 1891, Katharine Drexel had founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic religious order supporting Native American and African American education and uplift. At Belmead they established the St. Emma Industrial and Agricultural Institute for African American boys in 1895. Adapting plantation buildings surviving from the Cocke era, the boarding school provided a practical trades and agricultural curriculum as espoused by Booker T. Washington. St. Francis de Sales school opened in 1899, providing a curriculum in both academics and domestic sciences for African American girls. At Belmead, on a site where African Americans had been held in chattel , students received a practical education that promoted a measure of economic and social upward mobility. The schools closed in the 1970s after having educated well over 15,000 students. In 2005, aiming to protect Belmead’s environment and richly layered heritage, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament placed 1000 acres of the nearly 2300-acre Belmead site into a conservation easement. Exhibit Designers Special Thanks Professor Daniel Bluestone Sister Maureen Carroll St. Emma Military Academy Alumni Katherine Brady Sister Elena Henderson St. Francis Alumni Bridget Hembree Sister Angela Lydon Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament Archives Jesús Najar Fierro Sister Jean Ryan UVA Special Collections Library Catherine Redfearn FrancisEmma, Inc. Rebekah Sargeant Stephanie Morris Additional research provided by Edward Barnes | Kathleen Clinton | Kathryn Lasdow | Crystal Prigmore | Sarah Richardsen | Jennifer Hugman Elizabeth Klaczynski | Chase Sparling-Beckley | Michael Wsol ORDERORDER ONON THETHE LANDLAND Evolution, Growth, Changes, and Demolition Belmead is a multi-layered landscape spanning from Native American inhabitation, through the Cocke family plantation, to the Drexel and Morrell vision for a new educational system, and reaching out to the neighboring properties and communities in Powhatan County. Each of these eras has been characterized by a conscious effort to manage the natural environment and give order and form to the built landscape.

Diagram showing relationship of Belmead mansion to outbuildings The Monacan tribe built encampments along the south shore of the James River on the Belmead property, which allowed them to take advantage of the natural riches of the site. In 1838, Philip St. George Cocke saw similar virtues in this land and purchased three Powhatan properties: Belmead, Mount Pleasant and Mount Erin. With time, and the use of enslaved hands, Cocke constructed a mansion for his family in a place where the house could be viewed from the James River and Kanawha Canal. Under his vision, all buildings fit appropriately into the context while conveying and symbolizing hierarchy, production, and permanence. A second vision for order came when Colonel Edward and Louise Drexel-Morrell purchased 630 acres of the Belmead site in the 1890s for St. Emma Institute. To support their military philosophy, a quadrangle next to the old mansion was constructed for a military parade ground. Over time, this space was framed by impressive two- and three-story masonry buildings - including the administration building, the chapel, and other academic and residential buildings - and it became the center of the academic campus. Additionally, the boys of St. Emma made expansive use of their landscape with areas for military exercises, agricultural and trade curricula, and athletics; all these activities extended well beyond the central academic quadrangle. Shortly after St. Emma opened, Louise’s sister, Mother Katharine Drexel, purchased the neighboring Mount Pleasant property for a girl’s school, once again reuniting the original Belmead property. St. Emma Institute was largely demolished in 1974, not long after the school closed. Woods now encroach on many sites, and wildlife has prospered, but traces of the plantation and school development populate the land. This new order provides a wealth of potential for rediscovery by alumni, visitors, and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the site’s perpetual stewards. THETHE PPATRICIANATRICIAN EELITELITE The Cocke Family Legacy Settles in Powhatan County

Ann Blaus Barraud Cocke John Hartwell Cocke Louisa Maxwell Holmes Cocke Sallie Edwards Browne Bowdoin John Tucker Bowdoin (1785 - 1816) (1780 - 1866) (1788 - 1843) (1794 - 1815) (1787 - 1821)

m. 1821

Sally John Louisiana Ann Blaus Cary Faulcon adopted 1826 Hartwell Barraud [Cabell] Charles [Brent] (1804 - 1846) [Faulcon] (1811 - 1862) (1814 - 1888) (1806 - 1829) (1816 - 1879)

*Note: Belmead was home to all of the people inside this box; many of them were born in the mansion.

Philip St. George Cocke (1809 - 1861) Sally Elizabeth Courtney Bowdoin Cocke (1815 - 1872) portrait at Bremo dated 1834 portrait at Bremo dated 1834 m. June 4, 1834

Louisiana Sally William Bettie Burwell John Lucy Cary Philip St. Courtney Charles Mary Helen Ann Blaus Barraud Browne Ruffin Page Cocke Bowdoin [Bridges] George, Jr. Bowdoin Hartwell Augusta Hansford (19 Mar – [Kennon] [Wilson] Coleman (1841 -1900) (1836 - 1889) (1842 - ) (1844 - 1913) [Barraud] (1851 - 1896) (1852 - 1902) (1855 - 1877) 24 Mar 1857) (1837 - 1892) (1840 - 1909) (1846 - 1884) (1848 - 1904)

m. 1866

Philip Lucy Mary John T. Bettie Norborne St. George, III Hamilton Louise Bowdoin Page Page (24 Sept - [Elliot] (1868 - 1966) (1871 - 1951) (1873 - 1973) (1878 - 1940) 26 Sept 1867) (1875 - 1969) The Cocke family arrived in Virginia with one of the earliest waves of settlers and soon distinguished themselves in both military and governmental service. Philip St. George was the son of John Hartwell Cocke, a decorated general and a founding member of the Board of Visitors at the University of Virginia. In 1826, John Hartwell became the legal guardian of Courtney Bowdoin, the orphaned daughter of his close friend. Philip and Courtney were married in 1834 and soon had their first child. They would raise eleven children together, ten of which outlived them. This was very unusual considering the high infant mortality rates of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the family experienced a different sort of tragedy in 1861. As the Civil War waged, Philip worried over the impending slave emancipation and the stress of its potential impact on his livelihood became too great to bear. On December 26 of that year, he committed suicide. His eldest son, John Bowdoin, assumed responsibility for the Belmead plantation and lived here with his wife and their five children, as well as his mother, for the next three decades. VIRGINIA’SVIRGINIA’S RREBELEBEL SSONON Financial Success Gained Through Resisting Paternal Influence The powerful, symmetrical Georgian mansion is the image commonly associated with plantations in the South, and indeed Philip’s ancestral home is in this more traditional style. Even the Bowdoin family home, to which the Cockes moved after they were married, was a fairly commonplace colonial building. Why, then, did Belmead deviate so drastically from this inherited architecture? On one hand, the design was a part of

the popular picturesque movement, but there were several associational qualities to this Four Mile Tree, Surry County - Courtney’s ancestral home style that Philip was undoubtedly trying to exploit. Most notably, the castle perched on a hill harkens back to feudal Europe and the image of the benevolent but firm lord presiding over his subjects. In the increasingly abolitionist atmosphere of Antebellum America, this gesture could theoretically soften the injustices of chattel slavery by

distancing this plantation from its less savory counterparts. Nevertheless, the powerful John Claudius Loudon pattern book design originally selected by castellated image also stood as a reminder to the workers as to just who was in charge. Philip to serve as the model for Belmead

John Hartwell Cocke’s Bremo Plantation in Fluvanna County where Philip St. George and Courtney Bowdoin Cocke were raised Philip held his father in high regard, but architecture was not the only subject on which they disagreed. Philip’s entire livelihood was contrary to his father’s beliefs: he was a tobacco farmer and one of the nation’s largest slave holders. John Hartwell, on the other hand, was an active promoter of temperance and a staunch colonizationist. In the first regard, John Hartwell saw tobacco as a blight on both society and agriculture. The adverse health effects of tobacco usage were indisputable, a fact that could similarly serve as metaphor for the crop’s production. The plant is very aggressive, and though it adapts well to poor growing conditions, it depletes the soil’s nutrients in the process. To John Hartwell, the basis of his son’s success was cancerous to the land as well as humans. Philip also considered himself a fair master, though John Hartwell argued that the fairest master would emancipate his slaves. By this, though, he meant to liberate them to Liberia, Africa, which is a key difference from abolitionism. It may seem hypocritical that the elder Cocke kept slaves as well, but he felt it was better for them to be under his control than to be vulnerable to the horrors of the slave trade. All of his workers, though, were ultimately eligible to earn their freedom. Philip, in contrast, made no such contracts. His lifestyle relied directly on forced labor and the end of slavery meant the end of his financial success. PICTURESQUEPICTURESQUE AMERICAAMERICA Popular Style Celebrates the Nation’s Unique Pastoral Landscape When Philip St. George Cocke hired the New York architect Alexander Jackson Davis to design Belmead in 1845, he was one of the most prolific architects in practice. Davis was affiliated with the Hudson River School, a group of artists and architects who claimed that the expansive, untouched nature of the new continent was the country’s greatest asset. The Gothic style became the preferred aesthetic of the Picturesque movement because the irregular massing and vertical lines mimicked similar characteristics of the landscape, and as such, tied the building more completely to its site.

This aesthetic is precisely what led Cocke to Davis. “I have selected the irregular or Gothic style because I think it much better adapted to country houses than the more regular & formal Roman & Grecian styles,” he explained in a letter early that year. “The irregular style on the contrary adapts itself as well to the features of the landscape as to a [balanced] & elegant interior arrangement.” Certainly, the interior of the mansion is expressed in the same language where Davis introduced high ceilings and tall, pointed arches. He also designed most of the original furniture, though little remains at the house today. A variety of window types further contributes to the irregular quality of the design, while their enlarged sizes allow seamless connections between the outside and the interior. In keeping with the sustainable ethic of the site, these design decisions combined to create an innovative and effective ventilation system that maintained a comfortable indoor environment before the aid of electricity was available. FOODFOOD PRODUCTIOPRODUCTION “For the Maintenance of Those Living Upon It” For 200 years agriculture has been a constant in Belmead history.

In the plantation era, tobacco was Belmead’s labor-intensive cash crop with 75,000 pounds produced in 1859. Tobacco cultivation tasks ran year round. In 1857, 35 of Belmead’s 129 slaves worked as field hands, and many others worked in other roles related to row crops, building hogsheads and quarters, cooking, and repairing shoes. They also grew food for the laborers. In 1859, Belmead raised 50,000 bushels of corn, 15,000 bushels of oats, 8,000 bushels of wheat and 10 tons of hay, to feed livestock and the people living on the plantation.

Even as tobacco cultivation ended at Belmead in the decades following the Civil War, the fields continued to be Notes from Belmead’s Plantation Farm Manual, 1857 farmed. The Morrells intended that the students and staff at St. Emma and St. Francis would live on food raised at Belmead with the help of student labor. In 1900, Belmead provided the schools and the neighborhood with dairy cows, sheep, pigs, poultry, wheat, corn, hay, orchard fruits, and vegetables.

In the 1936-1937 school year wheat, corn, potatoes, and soybeans, plus clover seed, silage, dry silage, hay, and straw grew in the fields. The poultry yard furnished the school with hens, an incredible 8,690 dozen eggs, broilers, and turkeys; the excess was sold to the outside market. Annual tasks involved in the production of oats, 1957 The dairy and piggery provided all the milk and cream, and nearly all of the meat used by the school.

Today, the Moyers organically farm 300 acres of row crops, including corn and soy. Sister Jean has a small but very productive organic community-supported agricultural vegetable garden, and Belmead’s horse stables rely on hay grown on site. The long agricultural legacy continues.

Agriculture students hard at work, shoeing horses and germinating seeds