Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant. The Knights of the Golden Horseshoe. In 1716 Alexander Spotswood, Lieutenant Governor of Virginia, led an expedition of twelve members of the gentry and about 30 enslaved servants, Native American guides, and soldiers up the Rappahannock River, through the Virginia Piedmont, and into the Blue Ridge Mountains and the the Shenandoah Valley. Known as the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe (for the small gold horseshoe tokens Spotswood gave his friends to commemorate the trip), Spotswood and the group quickly staked claims on large tracts of the valuable frontier lands they had explored. Among the group was James Taylor II of King and Queen (later Caroline) County, great-grandfather to future presidents James Madison and Zachary Taylor., In 1721, Taylor's eldest daughter Frances married Ambrose Madison, a respected merchant and planter from an established Tidewater Virginia family. In 1723, when Taylor received 4,675 acres as a surveyor's fee, he arranged for the tract to be patented in the names of his sons-in-law Ambrose Madison and Thomas Chew. Ambrose and Thomas were then required to make improvements on the land within three years. Ambrose named his share of the patent Mount Pleasant. For the next several years, Ambrose and Frances lived at their Caroline County plantation on the Mattaponi River with their growing family - James (b. 1723), Elizabeth (b. 1725), and Frances (b. 1726). At the same time, a small group of slaves and an overseer were working at Mount Pleasant to make good on Ambrose's patent. In the spring of 1732, Ambrose moved his family there., A Strange Death , A few months after coming to Mount Pleasant, Ambrose fell ill, having apparently been poisoned. He died on August 27, 1732. Three enslaved laborers - Pompey, Dido, and Turk - were charged with his murder. Pompey, whom Ambrose had leased from another Orange county planter, was found guilty and sentenced to death by hanging. Dido and Turk were found complicit and given twenty-nine lashes., A Matriarch Emerges , Ambrose had written his will one month before he died. He left Frances life rights to Mount Pleasant including twenty-nine slaves, among them Dido and Turk. Frances never remarried, and through her status as a widow, maintained control over the plantation. After her son James came of age in 1741, the plantation's tobacco was shipped in barrels stamped with both their initials, signaling Frances's continued authority., A New Chapter Begins , Frances's son James married Nelly Conway in 1749, and in 1751 their son James Jr. - the future president - was born at Nelly's family home, near Port Conway on the Rappahannock River. The young family returned to Mount Pleasant and soon took up residence in a newly-built planter's cottage, about 500 yards from Frances's house. When Frances died in 1761, James Sr. inherited the plantation. He began remaking it according to his own ambitions, building a large brick house beside his planter's cottage - a home that he would later call Montpelier., Photo Captions:, We have no drawings or descriptions of Mount Pleasant, but the archaeological record is well preserved. Excavations revealed the remains of the main house, a kitchen, and a slave quarter. The sizeable cellar and the large amounts of plaster helped to identify the main house. Artist's conception by Linda Boudreaux Montgomery., Cellar excavations at Mount Pleasant revealed the burnt remains of the structure. It was likely intentionally demolished after falling into disrepair.