Stagville State Historic Site

The Stagville Plantation is located in Durham County, North Carolina. With buildings constructed from the late 18th century to the mid-19th century, it was one of the largest plantation complexes in the American south. It was owned by the Bennehan-Cameron family. The complex comprised roughly 30,000 acres (120 km²), including the Little River plantation, and was home to almost 900 enslaved Africans in 1860. Historic Stagville, consisting of 71 acres (290,000 m2) in three tracts, provides a unique look at North Carolina's history and infrastructure in the antebellum South. The Bennehan House, built 1787 and 1799, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973; and Horton Grove, two-story slave residences built in 1850, was listed in 1978. Stagville's historic buildings include several slave residences, known as Horton Grove, which are well preserved. They are the only two-story slave houses remaining in North Carolina. Significant archaeological finds around the houses have given archaeologists and historians a glimpse into the lives of the many slaves who lived and worked at Stagville. Also on the site are several historic houses and barns, including the original Bennehan House.In 1976, Liggett and Meyers Tobacco Company, which had owned and worked the land for decades, donated the property to the state of North Carolina, which operates the site as an historic house museum known as Historic Stagville.