Length: .5-mile loop
Time: 45 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
If you are not willing to tour the Burroughs Farm where Booker T. Washington was born into slavery, there is no reason to visit Booker T. Washington National Monument, for the farm is essentially the park. There is no vehicle access, so a tour is done by walking the half-mile Plantation Trail, part of which is paved. Most of the main farm buildings can be reached along the paved sections, so even those in wheelchairs can see the farm (the path does have a slight slope, so it would be advisable to have some assistance). To see an original tobacco barn, however, requires hiking beyond the paved areas.
When the National Park Service took over the Burroughs Farm property in 1956 there was nothing left from the time Washington lived there. Even the exact location of where he was born was in question. The first trail around the farm that the National Park Service set up passed by a reproduction kitchen cabin, but the rest of the trail traversed an empty plot of land with nothing more than a few wayside exhibits that told about the farm and the early life of Washington. Realizing that such exhibits certainly weren’t going to attract visitors, and with the emerging popularity of “living history” between 1970 and 1974, the National Park Service built historically accurate reproductions of 1860s farm buildings so visitors had something physical to connect to the written information provided by the trail signs.
The Plantation Trail begins at the back of the Visitor Center building. Follow the paved path south towards the farm until you come to the intersection where the loop portion of the hike begins. Straight ahead is the kitchen cabin and smokehouse, whereas a left leads over to the livestock pens and barn. I continued straight and will describe the hike in the counterclockwise direction.
A fork in the paved Plantation Trail marks the start of the loop hike around the Burroughs Farm at Booker T. Washington National Monument
The kitchen cabin, as the building is known today, is a 1960 replacement of a cabin built in 1949 when the farm was part of Sidney Phillips’s Booker T. Washington Birthplace Memorial, the precursor to the present National Monument. The Phillip’s cabin was actually supposed to be a replica of Washington’s birth cabin based on the recollection of a boyhood friend, Henry Swain, who was still alive in 1937 when the idea was proposed. However, Swain mistakenly identified the location of the birth cabin as being that of the kitchen cabin, which stood until 1922. Because Washington’s mother was the cook, the family moved from his birth cabin into the kitchen cabin a few years after he was born.
Archaeologists have since identified a location thought to be the birth cabin site and this, along with the site of the Burroughs’ house, is marked with stones embedded into the ground. The house stood until it burned down in 1950, so its location is certain. Whether the proposed location of Washington’s birth cabin is accurate can never be proven with one-hundred percent accuracy, but archaeological evidence supports that a cabin was on the location.
Kitchen cabin, smokehouse, and the outline of where the Burroughs’ house once stood, Booker T. Washington National Monument
The kitchen cabin is open whenever the Visitor Center is open, though there is not much to see. For the entire time he lived in the cabin, Washington and his brother and sister slept on a pile of rages on the dirt floor.
Kitchen cabin at Booker T. Washington National Monument is a reproduction of a cabin similar to the one in which Washington was raised
The smokehouse is also open and is furnished as a typical smokehouse of the time period.
The paved path ends at the cabin. To continue the hike, look for another building just down the hill and head towards it. This is the blacksmith shed, and like the smokehouse, it is outfitted with furnishings and equipment typical of an 1860s blacksmith shed.
The next point of interest is the tobacco barn. To reach it, continue downhill from the smokehouse to a mowed path that leads into the forest. The trail crosses a creek via a small footbridge, and the barn is just a little farther ahead, overall a quarter mile into the hike. The tobacco barn is the only original structure at Booker T. Washington National Monument, though it was built after Washington’s time on the farm. It is noted in the National Register of Historic Places as being built in 1894 by John Robertson, the man who purchased the farm at this time from Elizabeth Burroughs, wife of the original owner, James Burroughs (who died in 1861). Other sources state that it was built by Elizabeth shortly before she sold the farm to Robertson. Regardless, Robertson moved it a hundred feet from its original location to put it on level ground. Surviving Robertson children claimed that about a third of the building materials are from the Burroughs era, which seems to support the claim that it was built by Elizabeth.
You now have the option to hike the Jack-O-Lantern Branch Trail, a 1.5-mile loop that offers no insight into Washington’s life or the Burroughs Farm and is thus mainly for exercise purposes. I hiked it, but for this trail report I will discuss the Plantation Trail only.
To continue the hike on the Plantation Trail and head back to the Visitor Center, take a sharp left and cross a footbridge over Spring Branch, a small creek. A trail sign points the way.
Continue on the Plantation Trail at Booker T. Washington National Monument by crossing a footbridge over Spring Branch near the Tobacco Barn
The second half of the Plantation Trail starts off up a moderate hill and passes a field where tobacco is grown. Tobacco is known as a “cash crop,” which means that it is a crop raised solely for money, not for personal consumption. It is amazing that humans could be so addicted to a product, particularly one that literally went up in smoke, that it was as good as gold.
Along the gravel path are wayside exhibits with passages and illustrations from More Than Anything Else, a book by Marie Bradby. This is a fictionalized story about Washington when he was a kid.
A couple minutes’ walk past the tobacco field is the barn, pig pen, and chicken coop. This is where all of the animals are kept. The Burroughs had horses, chickens, ducks, turkeys, geese, sheep, and hogs. The horses were used for transportation and to plow the fields. All other animals were used for food for the family and slaves—the Burroughs did not raise animals for selling. Vegetables were also grown for family, slave, and livestock consumption. Tobacco was the source of income.
Animals on the farm include chicken, sheep, pigs, and a horse.
To get back to the Booker T. Washington National Monument Visitor Center, take the paved path that runs between the horse barn and the chicken coop. Fifty yards down the path is the intersection where the loop started. Take a right to get back to the Visitor Center. The overall hike takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on how long you stop at the buildings.
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Last updated on April 10, 2024