Oatlands was formed in 1798 from 3,408 acres of prime Loudoun County, Va, farmland by a young bachelor named George Carter, descendant of one of Virginia’s first families. Basing his plantation economy on wheat production, Carter eventually branched out to grow other small grains; raise sheep for their wool; develop a vineyard; and build a mill complex on nearby Goose Creek for the grinding of grain, milling of timber, and pressing of flax seed to produce oil cake. In 1801 he began calling his plantation “Oatlands.”
In 1804 Carter began building a classic Federal-style mansion near the southern boundary of his property. As his farm took hold and his financial position strengthened, he added a terraced garden and numerous outbuildings to the property, including a propagation greenhouse, a smokehouse, and a three-story bank barn. During the 1820s and 1830s Carter added to and embellished his mansion.
Carter’s growing wealth was based on the labor of enslaved African Americans. When he took over the property, George Carter owned 17 slaves; in the 1840s the number had grown to 85. Just prior to the Civil War Oatlands housed the largest slave population in Loudoun County, numbering 128 people. Unfortunately, little documentary evidence remains about the personal lives of these workers or the slave culture at Oatlands.
When George Carter died, his widow, Elizabeth Grayson Carter, remained at Oatlands with their two sons and managed the property through the Civil War years.
The Carter family’s fortunes declined following the Civil War. Beset with debt and unable to recover from the loss of their slave labor, 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.
Today Oatlands is a self-supporting co-stewardship National Trust Historic Site. The mission of Oatlands is to preserve the property for future generations, interpret the house and grounds to the public, and serve as an educational resource. The grounds also are available for special events and private functions.
See how Iron Mountain is helping preserve one of Oatlands’ treasured documents and a major source of information about the Enslaved HERE.
