Part two: How Albemarle County's largest Black-owned farm became a refuge for Black women to give birth

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Friday, April 12, 2024

We return today to the story of Albemarle County's largest Black-owned farm, a place called Buck Island, owned and managed by one family for more than a century.

(If you're new to this story, I strongly recommend you stop here and read part one of this series!)

Last month, we learned about Buck Island for the first time from Philip Cobbs, a local writer who is the direct descendant of the family that owned Buck Island, and among the last of his family to live on that land. Today, we get a peek into a few of the other extraordinary people who lived and worked there.

A man with a walking stick looks out over a river, trees behind him. — Credit: Kori Price/Collectbritain

How one family owned and ran the largest Black-owned farm in Albemarle County — for generations

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The more than 600 acre farm first came into the family's possession in 1835 — nearly 30 years before Emancipation. Like nearly all Virginia estates at that time, it was owned by a wealthy white man: Thomas Garland. Garland also owned people.

Like many wealthy plantation owners of his time, he had children with one of the Black women he enslaved — 13 children. But, unlike many of his fellow plantation owners, he claimed them. It seems he was open about his relationship with their mother, too. There is even evidence that he married Elizabeth Allen after his white wife died.

A photo shows text from a historic newspaper. — A photo of The Staunton Spectator, from Jan. 24, 1870 shows an article about Thomas Garland and his wife, Elizabeth Allen. Staunton Spectator via newspapers.com

The Staunton Spectator published an article in 1870, first written in the Charlottesville Chronicle, informing readers that Garland would not take the position of Charlottesville’s postmaster: “We cannot imagine a greater outrage on any community than the appointment to a position, which will bring him into necessary contact with everybody, of a man whose moral character is so utterly degraded as that of this miserable old wretch, who for years kept a negro woman as a mistress while his wife was alive and in his house, and who has just outraged all decency by making this woman his wife.”

But Garland stood by his Black family, and upon his death left his estate to the mother of his children.

Garland is Phillip Cobbs' great great grandfather. And though the man's actions allowed his Black descendents to thrive and give refuge to other Black families for the next century, Cobbs is still unsure how to feel about him.

“My great great grandfather Thomas was a complicated man,” Cobbs writes. After all, his household according to the 1830 U.S. Census included 10 enslaved people and seven free persons of color. “How he interacted with those 17 people can only be imagined.”

Whatever the answer, Garland's decision to leave land to his Black family changed history.

In today's story from Cobbs, we learn about one of his ancestors, a woman named Sarah Garland Boyd Jones. Jones was the first African American woman to become a doctor in Virginia. She was born at the Buck Island farm, then called the Garland Plantation. Her relatives made it a safe place for Black women to give birth. As word of Buck Island spread, Black women would travel hundreds of miles to give birth there. Our writer, Cobbs, was himself born at Buck Island.

“My mother said she felt safer there than at the University of Virginia’s hospital,” Cobbs writes.

A two-lane road with a car approaching, cleared land and some trees to the side, white clouds in a blue sky. In the center of the image, a green road sign says, "BUCK ISLAND CREEK." — Credit: Kori Price/Collectbritain

It was once his family’s farm — the largest Black-owned farm in Albemarle County — but now we all own part of it

As you read today's story, keep in mind what we learned in part one. In the 1970s, the Garland family member holding the deed to the farm died suddenly without leaving a will. The lionshare of the land was auctioned off to a paper packing company. It's been divided and sold multiple times since then. But now, Albemarle County owns 122-acre piece of it.

“What will we do with it?” Cobbs wrote in the conclusion to his first piece. “I hope that its history will be incorporated into those plans, however far out they are. We all now have a stake in Buck Island.”

Want to learn more about Buck Island, and Cobbs' work uncovering its history? Cobbs will be host a presentation at the Northside Library on Rio Road on April 23. More about that event, and how to attend, here.

Have a great weekend, everyone!
Jessie Higgins, managing editor