THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, November 4, 1994 TAG: 9411020219
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 4B EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MARY REID BARROW, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Rosemont Forest Elementary School students recently were introduced to life as it really was in the ``good old days'' of Princess Anne County, and some of it was not as good as they thought.
The fifth-graders in Beverly Wooddell's class visited the historic Francis Land House and learned that the majority of 18th century residents were not rich gentry, like the Land family, who wore fine clothes and lived on plantations. Residents also included hard-working, middle-class folks who made their livings as blacksmiths, seamstresses or barrel makers.
The students also learned that 50 percent of the population was slaves, men and women who weren't given last names, people who might have been as talented as the barrel maker but who weren't free to ply their own trades.
The students learned about life in old Princess Anne by role playing in a Land House program called ``Plantation People.'' Each student was assigned a part, whether as a Land family member, a slave or a trades or crafts person.
Reading from scripts, using hands-on reproductions and answering thought-provoking questions from Francis Land House education specialist Vicki Harvey, the students moved from ``prop'' station to ``prop'' station in the historic house.
The ``scene'' was set in the late 1770s when Francis Land IV and his young son, Francis Land V, would have been alive. For the most part, the ``cast'' - their names and their trades - were developed from actual historical record.
``Keep in mind that these are real people that lived here in your hometown 200 years ago,'' Harvey told the students. ``These are the people that lived, worked and visited your hometown.''
The first station was at the entrance of the Land House, where students met Sally, a 9-year-old household slave played by a classmate. Sally grew up on the plantation and helped with cleaning and laundry and answering the door.
Sally opened the door and let in another classmate, Mr. Midgett, a peddler of tinware who stopped by the plantation to sell tin lanterns. Sally also opened the door for Mr. Russworm, the dance master in Princess Anne County. He was visiting the plantation to teach the young Land children how to dance.
``These were three very different people who contributed to plantation life,'' Harvey told the students.
At each prop station, students read from their scripts and played the roles of other folk who contributed to life in old Princess Anne. There was William Warren, the tutor who traveled from plantation to plantation teaching the children of the wealthy.
``Who's teaching the slaves?'' Harvey asked.
``No one,'' the children responded.
After learning more about the life of the upper class, Harvey escorted the children to the basement and told them about the life of other trades people and of the slaves. She introduced them to the cooper's apprentice, a 10-year-old living with the barrel maker to learn his trade.
``He works as hard as a young slave,'' Harvey said. ``But what's the difference?''
``He isn't a slave,'' the children responded.
Slaves also were coopers and they were herbalists, gardeners, weavers, spinners of wool and candlemakers. Although trained to professions, unlike apprentices, slaves never got their freedom, Harvey noted.
It took 20 or more slaves to keep the Land family of four or five and their plantation going, Harvey told the children. In Princess Anne County at the time, the gentry was 2 percent of the population; the middle class, 48 percent; and slaves, 50 percent.
``In order to tell history,'' Harvey told the students, ``you don't just tell one part, you tell it all.'' MEMO: For more information about the Plantation People in old Princess Anne
County or other Francis Land House school programs, call 340-1732.
ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by CHARLIE MEADS
ABOVE: Vicki Harvey, Francis Land House education specialist, asks
thought-provoking questions of the Rosemont Forest Elementary School
fifth-graders.
RIGHT: Amada Nicolas, left, with help from Sherell Morrison, dresses
up as a young lady would have at the Francis Land House.
James Truselo, playing the part of Frank, a slave, reads what his
duties were in the Francis Land House 200 years ago.
by CNB