Sunnyside

UVA purchased the tract now occupied by the Law School in 1963. This property was known at the time as Sunnyside, or the Duke tract, and is comprised of land originally inhabited by the Monocan people. Throughout the 19th century, multiple families lived on and farmed the property with the help of enslaved labor. Charlottesville’s first Poor House was located on the property. The Duke Family purchased Sunnyside in 1863 and enslaved at least 11 individuals who lived and worked there. When UVA bought Sunnyside in 1963, the tract became the home of the law and business schools on North Grounds.

A chain of title for the land containing Sunnyside can be traced back to 1788. Census records reveal that since that time, at least 37 enslaved persons lived and worked at on this property. John Alphin owned Sunnyside from 1788-1818 and reported that he enslaved four persons in the 1810 census. When Blake Harris lived at Sunnyside, he and his wife Polly Harris reported that they enslaved six people in the 1820 census, five of whom were “engaged in agricultural activity.” By 1830, the Harrises enslaved ten people. John Merchant lived at Sunnyside from 1835-1846, and the 1840 census lists two people whom he enslaved. Ira Garrett did not have legal title over the land, but he lived at Sunnyside from at least 1847-1854, and the 1850 slave schedule shows that he enslaved 12 people at that time.

The Duke Family purchased and moved to Sunnyside in 1863. Duke family papers mention “the hands” working in the fields and farming on the property, which was likely carried out by these enslaved laborers whose bondage was either owned or rented by the Duke family. From the diary of one of the Duke sons, it is evident that both wheat and sugar cane were grown at Sunnyside. R.T.W. Duke Sr.'s letters home in 1865, while he was imprisoned after the Civil War as a Confederate officer, mention crops of hay, corn, rye, and fruit, some of which was likely planted on "this hill opposite the house and the flat." These letters also mentioned pigs and fowl on the property.

In a chapter of R.T.W. Duke Jr.’s “Recollections,” which recounts his childhood at Sunnyside, Duke Jr. described the persons enslaved by his family, including nine people who lived and worked at Sunnyside. When the Duke Family moved into Sunnyside, according to Duke Jr., the “servant’s quarters” consisted of a one and a half story house next to the kitchen until they were moved off the house in 1894. The enslaved persons mentioned in Recollections who lived and worked at Sunnyside included Rose, who Duke described as his “mammy.” Rose’s husband Wilson worked for another family, the Omohundros. Both died at Sunnyside and are buried on the property. An older enslaved person named “Aunt Fanny” had been enslaved by the family of Duke Jr.'s mother. At Sunnyside, she took care of Duke Jr.'s sister. Aunt Fanny may have been the 70-year-old female who appears on the 1860 slave schedule as enslaved by Duke Sr. He also mentioned Jane, the cook, and noted that she was the first to leave the Dukes once “freedom came.” An older man named Si worked as the gardener; Si may be the 78-year-old male listed under Duke Sr. on the 1860 slave schedule. A woman named Emily worked as the maid. She had two children, one of whom “waited on” Duke Jr. while he attended the University of Virginia from 1870-1874. There were also two young men named Big Henry and Little Henry who did odd jobs and field work. Duke Jr. frequently mentioned Caesar, who was the son of an enslaved person named Maria. Duke Sr. sold Maria in 1858 or 1859, thus separating Caesar from his mother. Caesar was then designated as Duke Jr.’s “playmate” and stayed at Sunnyside into his adulthood. 

Duke Jr.'s biased descriptions of enslaved persons are some of the only surviving written evidence of the enslaved people who worked at Sunnyside. Duke Jr. frequently claimed in his “Recollections” that he did not see the horrors of slavery and felt that the slave-master relationship was beneficial to the men and women his family owned. 

Duke Sr. served as a Colonel during the Civil War leading the 46th Regiment of the Virginia Infantry for the Confederacy. In the winter of 1863-64, Duke Jr. recalled in his Recollections that Confederate General Wickham’s Brigade would stay in the Poor House woods. While they stayed there, General Roger Atkinson Pryor lodged at Sunnyside. Duke Jr. further described his experience watching the Union troops march into Charlottesville alongside Caesar, an enslaved person belonging to Duke. Having run to a hill upon hearing the army band playing, they saw the troops moving down University Road “like a great blue snake.” While the Union army occupied Charlottesville, Duke Jr. alleged that troops came to Sunnyside and looted the house. The family was saved, however, when citizens and Confederate soldiers showed up and a Company formed “partly in the lane and partly in our house.” Later during the occupation of Charlottesville, Duke Jr. recounted that soldiers from Union General Devin’s regiment came to Sunnyside looking for Col. Duke, but he was not there.

Resources were scarce during the war at Sunnyside. Duke Jr. noted that they survived the Union looting of the home because they had hidden some hams in the chimney. There was no coffee or sugar in the town, so the family began to grow their own sugarcane to make molasses and sorghum syrup. Flour and meat were in short supply and whatever clothes and shoes the Duke family had were thanks to the work of their enslaved laborers making homespun clothing and cobbling their shoes.

After the arrival of federal troops in Charlottesville and the surrender of the Confederate Army at Appomattox in 1865, Jane was the first of Sunnyside's formerly enslaved community to leave the Duke family. After hearing about Jane's departure, Duke Sr. wrote home to his wife: "Tell the other negroes they had better stay where they are until I get home, and then if they can't agree with me as to hire they can leave." Duke Sr. further instructed his wife about his proscribed negotiation strategy for hiring those that the family had formerly enslaved, stating that if they were to "remain with me at a reasonable hire I would take care of them in sickness and support them when they get old. But if they leave of their own accord when able to work, they must not appeal to be received back when they get sick or too old to take care of themselves.” 

Sources

Maps

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Map of Albemarle County showing Duke Estate "Sunnyside" near Charlottesville