Providence Plantation and Farm

Thomas R. Dew, who fought in the Revolutionary War, established a plantation he called Dewsville in King and Queen County, Virginia. He had five sons, and in 1826 built this house as a wedding present for his eldest son, William, who would expand it in the 1840s.[4] Another son, Thomas Roderick Dew, became a professor and president of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, but predeceased his father and elder brother.

By 1830, Dr. William Dew operated this plantation using 17 enslaved people (8 males and 9 females). In 1837, Dr. Dew bought an additional 200 acres from his father, adding to the 500 acres given to him at his wedding, and he may have received an additional 511 acres and 20 slaves upon his father's death in 1849. Dr. Dew donated some land to construct Horeb Church nearby, and died in 1854. At his death, his estate included two farms totaling 1211 acres and more than 60 slaves.[5] On the eve of the Civil War, Dr. Dew's widow, 3 daughters and son Benjamin Dew lived on the property. Three sons fought in the conflict as Confederate officers. Five of the eleven slave quarters noted in the 1860 slave census have been located and investigated by archeologists. Although Mrs. Dew and her daughters managed to operate the plantation with the help of five hired laborers after the conflict, descendants sold the plantation in 1908. Several different families owned the property in the next 13 years, before it was acquired by the Fogg family, whose members modernized it during the next six decades, and some of whom live nearby in newer houses on land once owned by Capt. Thomas Dew. Although the manor house sustained damage over the years (especially when it was vacant for a decade), more remained of the original structure than in other houses of the area and era. It was acquired and restored by the Stuart family in recent years, and named a Virginia Historic Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.[6]