Horseford Plantation

Near intersection of Highway 903 and St. Tammany Drive. Partially viewable from Anchorage Way, Bracey, VA 23919

Hours:
Private home, not open to the public

Planter, merchant, entrepreneur, and local business advisor Armstead Goode Boyd lived at Horseford Plantation, which took its name from the ford on the Roanoke River: the horse ford. The present house ("Isle of Rest") was built for Boyd in 1868 to replace the house, destroyed by fire, that he and his family lived in during the Civil War.

The plantation was visited by some of "Sheridan's Raiders" - cavalry regiments under Major General Philip Sheridan that General U.S. Grant had ordered to move south, through Danville, toward CSA General Joseph E. Johnston, then in North Carolina. On April 25, 1865, the raiders liberated property - probably horses - worth $360.90.

Boyd was a valuable resource locally during the war, to both those on the homefront and those away in service. Trusted and a good businessman, Boyd served as executor of estates and guardian of orphans. He was also a patriotic and optimistic Confederate; during the war years, "such was his own confidence in the stability of the Confederate Government, and in the bonds and stocks of the Government as valuable & desirable securities" that he invested in the CSA not only for his wards but for himself as well. He later sadly pointed out that the failure of those investments should "be attributed to events & circumstances which no human power could control, & nothing short of omniscience could have foreseen, to the results of a mighty revolution which has swept away alike the property, the social landmarks, the happiness & prosperity of a whole people." Contributor: Susan Bracey Sheppard, author of Life by the Roaring Roanoke

Sources:
Full Sources for Historic Sites [pdf]