Shirley

West and Shirley Hundred, one of Virginia's earliest English settlements, was established along the James River just to the south ca. 1613. Edward Hill purchased land here by 1656 and acquired about 2,500 acres by 1660. The labor of enslaved African Americans was essential to the plantation. Hill’s great-granddaughter Elizabeth Hill married John Carter, and the mansion, dependencies, and barns were built for them ca. 1738. Their son Charles remodeled the house in the 1770s. Ann Hill Carter, mother of Robert E. Lee, grew up at Shirley and married Henry “Light-Horse Harry” Lee here in 1793. Shirley, operated by the Hill-Carter family for more than 10 generations, is a National Historic Landmark.