The Jenkins Plantation Museum, located in the Green Bottom Wildlife Management Area of Cabell County, will host a cultural heritage program on the history of slavery on the Jenkins Plantation on Saturday, March 12, at 1 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Stan Bumgardner, acting director of museums for the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, will talk about why so little is known about the slaves who lived at Green Bottom and what became of them after the Civil War. The Jenkins family operated the largest slave plantation in the region, and this successful agriculture shipping business could not have existed without slave labor.
The talk, “The Slaves of Green Bottom,” is part of a larger effort to document the lives of enslaved African Americans in the region and possibly locate some of their living descendants. Bumgardner will show 19th-century artifacts related to enslaved African Americans, some pertaining specifically to the Jenkins Plantation and others to slavery in general.
Visitors may also tour the historic plantation house and enjoy light refreshments.
The Jenkins Plantation Museum is located on West Virginia Route 2 between Huntington and Point Pleasant at 8814 Ohio River Road in Lesage. A facility of the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, the museum is the former home of Confederate Brigadier General Albert Gallatin Jenkins. The 1835 house, built in the tradition of Tidewater, Va., is noteworthy for its architecture and was built by slaves between 1830 and 1835 for Jenkins’ father William. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places and on the Civil War Discovery Trail. The museum’s regular hours are Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information about the Cultural Heritage Program presentation at the Jenkins Plantation Museum, call Matt Boggess, site manager of the facility at (304) 762-1059, or Bumgardner at (304) 558-0220.
The West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Visit the Division’s website at www.wvculture.org for more information about programs of the Division. The Department of Arts, Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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