Cultural Landscape

Site 44JC1140 is only 1,100 feet northeast of the Kingsmill plantation house complex, an imposing brick mansion and two large flanking outbuildings built by the Burwell family about 1736. Three generations of this wealthy family lived in the house until they sold Kingsmill in 1783. After 1799, Kingsmill was in the hands of absentee owners, but the mansion stood until it burned in 1844. Kingsmill’s owner at the time, William Allen, built a smaller wooden house for his overseers on top of the mansion ruins a few years later. That house survived until about 1900.
Site 44JC1140 was also near a road that once ran from Kingsmill’s wharf on the James River to Williamsburg. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the wharf was an important stopping point for James River commercial traffic, mail, and passengers headed to Williamsburg. The wharf and road were particularly important to both the Confederate and Union armies for the transportation of supplies and troops.