Organization of the Monticello Plantation

Organization of the Monticello Plantation

Thomas Jefferson's landholdings in Albemarle County totaled some 5,000 acres. Measuring approximately eight square miles, the Monticello plantation's landscape featured wooded hills, two small mountains, rolling pastures, streams and the Rivanna River, which provided waterpower to Monticello's mills and — thanks to Jefferson's dredging efforts – a waterway to the markets in Richmond and beyond. 

Mulberry Row

Mulberry Row—a 1,300-foot-long section of the road encircling the Monticello house—was the hub of the plantation. Over time, it included more than 20 workshops, dwellings, and storage buildings where enslaved people, indentured servants, and free black and white workmen lived and worked as weavers, spinners, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, nail-makers, carpenters, sawyers, charcoal-burners, stablemen, joiners, or domestic servants. Mulberry Row changed over time―structures were built, removed, and re-purposed―to accommodate Jefferson’s changing plans for Monticello.

The Greater Plantation

To manage his vast estate, Jefferson divided the land into separate "farms." 

Monticello mountain was the plantation's "home farm." Outlying lands were divided into manageable parcels known as "quarter farms" and were run by resident overseers. Thomas Jefferson's quarter farms were Tufton (adjacent to Monticello), Shadwell, and Lego (both north of the Rivanna River, which bisected his landholdings). Jefferson sought to further organize his farms by dividing them into agricultural fields of forty acres each.