The land that became Oatlands started as a land grant that Robert “King” Carter purchased for his son, Robert II, in 1727. At the time of King Carter’s death in 1732, he owned about 300,000 acres that stretched from the Northern Neck to west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and he enslaved approximately 3,000 people.

Robert “King” Carter I >

Robert Carter III was the grandson of King Carter and served on the Governor’s council in Williamsburg, earning him the nickname of “Councilor.” One of the large landholdings Councilor inherited from his father was the 11,000-acre Goose Creek tract in Loudoun County. Councilor never lived on the tract; rather, he leased the land to numerous tenant farmers who paid him an annual rent. Some of the tenant farmers might have used enslaved labor to work their leased land.  

Robert Carter II >

In addition to the Goose Creek tract, Councilor had numerous landholdings throughout Virginia, encompassing tens of thousands of acres, and he enslaved over 500 people. Over the course of his life, he came to view slavery as immoral and in 1791 he filed a Deed of Emancipation in Northumberland County, Virginia, for the gradual manumission of the people he enslaved. The laws at that time permitted enslavers to free the people they held in bondage if certain conditions were met. Councilor’s “Deed of Gift”, as it is known, is believed to be the largest private emancipation in American history, and one that is not well-known. 

In 1798, Councilor’s son George inherited 3,408 acres of prime Loudoun County, Virginia farmland from the Goose Creek Tract, and he named his plantation Oatlands. Unlike other sons of wealthy Virginia planters, George did not inherit enslaved people. Neither he nor his siblings had the same change in belief about slavery as their father. George began to purchase enslaved people as he established Oatlands, and by the 1800 Census, George was recorded as enslaving 17 people on his Loudoun property. 

George Carter >

Construction on the Federal-style mansion began in 1804, using bricks made on the property by enslaved people. Over time, a walled, terraced garden was carved out of a hill on the east side of the mansion, and a propagation greenhouse, dairy, smokehouse, and garden dependency added to the domestic core. A three-story bank barn anchored the agricultural area to the southeast of the mansion, and a large grist mill, sawmill, nail factory, and the county’s only known oil mill for pressing oil out of flaxseed were constructed on Goose Creek.

1804 Mansion >

The main crop at Oatlands was wheat, and eventually Carter branched out to grow other small grains; raise sheep for their wool; and build a mill complex on nearby Goose Creek. In 1817 George successfully petitioned his neighbor and newly elected president, James Monroe, to establish a post office at the mill site. This enclave of businesses became a thriving commercial hub which continued into the mid-20th century.

Oatlands’ Mill >

The plantation grew, and George’s success as a farmer and businessman was dependent on enslaved labor. Enslaved men, women and children farmed the land, tended the 4 ½ acres of terraced garden near the mansion, cared for the family, and probably worked at the mills. The number of people held in bondage grew from 17 in 1800 to 133 recorded in the 1860 census, right before the start of the American Civil War. It was the largest plantation in Loudoun County.

Martin Van Buren Buchanan >

George remained a bachelor until age 58 when he married the wealthy widow, Elizabeth Osborne Grayson Lewis. Her first husband, Joseph Lewis Jr., was a state and federal politician who owned Clifton plantation near the Grayson estate in western Loudoun near Upperville. At Lewis’s death in 1834, nine members of the Bryant family were emancipated by his will. One young woman, Maria, remained in bondage to serve as Elizabeth’s “ladies’ maid.” Elizabeth’s father died in 1835, and she inherited 11 enslaved people by his will. With her marriage to George, two groups of enslaved people were uprooted and moved to Oatlands, where more than 60 people were already living and laboring on the plantation.

Elizabeth Carter >

The Carters had two boys who survived to adulthood – George and Benjamin. Their father died in 1846, leaving Elizabeth to run the plantation as he did – with the help of overseers, farm managers, and enslaved labor. She never remarried.

George and Benjamin Carter >

Elizabeth kept a diary from 1861 to 1872, recording the temperature, wind direction, and everyday activities at Oatlands and Bellefield, her other plantation that was near Upperville. Her entries include numerous references to certain enslaved people, probably those who labored domestically with proximity to the family and those who provided domestic or personal tasks outside of the house. From the diary we get a glimpse of life during and after the Civil War.

Elizabeth Carter Diary >

Elizabeth departed Oatlands after the Battle of Ball’s Bluff in October 1861 and moved to Bellefield where she felt it was safer. Both sons married during the war, and her oldest son, George, and his wife Kate Powell, lived at Oatlands.

Kate Powell Carter >

After the war, people formerly enslaved by the Carters embraced freedom and civil rights. They bought small parcels from the Elgin family and established the village of Gleedsville, named for Jack Gleed, not far from Oatlands. They built homes and eventually a church, which became the heart of their community. People once enslaved at Bellefield purchased small lots from Elizabeth’s sister and brother-in-law and formed the community of Howardsville, named for Sophia (Moten) and Jacob Howard.

Gleedsville Church >

The Carter family’s fortunes declined following the war. Beset with debt and unable to learn how to farm with a paid labor force, George Carter Jr. and his wife, Katherine Powell Carter, operated Oatlands first as a girls’ school and later as a summer boarding house. In 1897, the Carters sold the mansion with 60 acres to Stilson Hutchins, founder of the Washington Post newspaper. Hutchins never lived on the property, selling it in 1903 to affluent Washingtonians, William and Edith Eustis, as their country home.