Abstract:
In 1978, the Historic Jamestown Society was given the Mendenhall Plantation in Jamestown, North Carolina, as a donation from the owner, Mrs. W.G. Ragsdale. The plantation represented a part of the south that many people were not familiar with: the small farmer who did not depend on slave labor. James Mendenhall and his family were Pennsylvania Quakers who settled the area around 1762. They named the settlement between Salisbury and Virginia Jamestown after James. The plantation was built around 1811 by Richard Mendenhall, the son of the town's founder. The two-story, “hall and parlor†style structure had Flemish bond brick walls and arched openings. There is also a Pennsylvania-style barn on the grounds, which was once used to teach runaway slaves a trade. The Jamestown Society plans to open the site to visitors and furnish it with antiques from the period.