the long lost 1607 fort was discovered by william kellso. we'll hear his story and hear the story of the dig and meet senior curator bly strong, who shows us some of the 1.5 million artifacts collected at the site. join us saturday, may 12th, beginning at 1:30 p.m. eastern. >> mobt peelier, located 90 south of the nation's capital near orange, virginia. the 2600-estate includes the gilmore cabin, built in the 1870s, by one of mr. madison's

former slaves. we visit the historic friedman's farm no learn what life was like for an emancipated slave and his family. >> welcome to gilmore cabin, freedman's farm, my name is christian cotz. this farm was built in the 1870s, after the civil war, if you follow me inside, i'll show you around. george gilmore was a slave for james madison. what happened to george after dolly madison had to sell montpelier, we're really not sure. slaves were broken into three distinct groups at this time. one group sold with the

plantation to lenny monceour. one group of slaves was sold outright to other owners, all over. and one group of slaves accompanied dolly to washington, where she had moved. we believe that george gilmore was among the slaves that were sold with montpelier and stayed on the property after its sale. the next time george gilmore appears in the historical record is in 1870, when he shows us up in the census, living right here on the property. we know this cabin was not built yet. these trees that built this cabin weren't built until 1873. it's pretty likely that george didn't build this cabin until 1873 or 1874. we know that through

endocrinology, the study of logs. you can see a core that's been taken out of the log. by studying the tree rings in that core sample, we can figure out exactly what year that tree was cut down. george gilmore shows up in the 1870 as a farm laborer living here this land belonged to dr. james madison, a surgeon in the confederate army. he a medical practice in orange, but owned a 300-400 acre plantation on this side of the highway and needed people to work that land. after the civil war, there were no slaves and most land owners didn't want to pay laborers to do their farming. what was the solution? the solution was tenant farming and share cropping. so we don't know the exact details, but we believe that

george gilmore lived on this property in return for work that he did on the doctor's farm. by 1880, george is listed as a farmer. not a farm laborer. the difference being he's no longer working for the doctor. he's working for himself. how is he still living on this land if he's not working for the doctor anymore? george had five children, and the three oldest were sons. those three sons would be working for the doctor. there was a succession of three buildings on this property. the first one was a small hut that confederate army built over the winter of 1863-1864. they camped from december or january until late april of '64, when they went off to the battle of the wilderness. when george gilmore moved into that hut, he moved in, working as a tenant farmer or share

cropper for dr. james madison. over time, he kocobbled togethea few confederate huts to build a larger structure if you look at this photograph, what you can see, the hut site, the chimney base from the hut site with the hut extending this way. it's not outlined on the picture and then the first structure that george built for he and his family to live in, removing the chimney base and rebuilding a stouter chimney here, and if you look at the 1920s photograph we have here, you can see that second structure behind the cabin, which was built in the mid 1870s, 1874. a series of three structures. between the second and third structure, there is a period of ten years. all right. george comes here after the civil war and moves in.

why such a long delay? why wouldn't he have built this bigger, nicer home for his family before 1874? the reason lies in the relationship between tenant farmers or share croppers and the land owners that they worked for. the freed slaves, emancipated slaves, and the white lan owners in the south had very tenuous relationships. uneasy at best. and the history between these two groups of people was not a good one. for an emancipated slave to be able to trust a white lan owner to the extent that he would put time and energy into a home like this, required a great deal of trust. most freedman's homes from this period are no longer standing.

that's because most freedmen didn't expect to be in one place very long. they didn't expect the relationship with the land owner she worked for would last. george, on the other hand, gives it time. waits the ten years, finally decides, yes, indeed, i am going to be able to trust this man, and builds his home in 1874. compared to other homes, to other freedman's homes in this period this cabin was built to last. it has stood for over 100 years. very few freedman's homes left in the united states. in the 1880 census, george gilmore is listed as a farmer. is he 70 years old, and he has finally stopped working for the doctor. his sons have taken over the agreement. his sons doing the labor required for the doctor, and george is here farming his own land. he has 16 acres that belong to -- that don't belong to him,

but that he has the right to farm. some of it's in orchard, some pasture, some crops. we frn the 1880 census, we know he had five acres in corn, five acres in wheat, an old hog, mom milk cows and some chickens. the wheat and corn crop wouldn't be enough to feed the horse. this is very subsistence level living. we also know that polly, george's wife and their two daughters, most likely did piecework, had a piecework sewing business out of the house. we found all of these buttons, beads, straight pins and safety pins under the floor of the cabin, and far more, thousands and thousands of glass beads, far more than just one garment breaking or just a normal

household's need for sewing material. by 1901, george gilmore is 91 years old. and the doctor is about the same age. these two guys, income their 90s, finally decide they are going to die soon and they need to wrap up their estates. so in 1901, dr. james madison sells george gilmore this property. land of this quality which was the poorest in the county, was going for about $1 an acre. george bought 16 acres from the doctor and this cabin that he built himself. the doctor charged george $560 for this cabin and 16 acres. in 1905, both george and the doctor died. and in 1908, polly died and the house was turned over to their children. the children lived here and built an addition in 1910, which

you can see in this picture. a frame edition off the side of the house, extending it a little bit. and a lot of the family still lived here into the 1920s, at which time the grandchildren just couldn't agree on who outrightly owned the property. and they argued and squabbled and wound up suing each other, going to court in jim crow, virginia. of course, an african-american family in the jim crow south wasn't going to get a fair trial or shake from the judge, and so the court system decided to take the property from the family, reimburse them for its value, which was negligeible, which thy split upon themselves, and then the county auctioned it, and the dupont family bought it. then the cabin and farm came into the montpelier tract, owned

by the did you poiuponts, and t kept people living in this cabin up through the 1960s. people who worked for them. in the 1960s, it was abandoned and the national trust acquired the property in 1984, you can see the woods had just about overtaken the cabin. when the trust acquired montpelier in 1984, they acquired 140 structures and it took u.s. a good 15 or 20 years to get around to this one. rebecca gilmore coleman, great granddaughter of george gilmore, came to the foundation and told us about her great grandfather's house. >> my great grandfather was george gilmore, who built the cabin, whose wife polly, were my

great grandparents. >> once we learned the story, we decided we needed to restore it, and in 2001, we started reclaiming the cabin from the woods and by 2005, we had a restored cabin. for the gilmore family, an emancipated family in the late 19th century, currency, money, would have been a rare commodity and used as a premium. most of the possessions that the gilmores had in their house, fell into three categories, they were made, they were found, or they were bought. and very few of their possessions would have been purchased. so you -- you look at the table. the table itself and the chairs and benches around it, would have been made by george or one of his sons. many of the cooking implements and bowls would have been made

by george or his sons, using the gourds as bowls or cups. wooden bowls, wooden spoons. the checkerboard made by hand. candles made by hand. found items might have included the ceramics, if you notice the pitcher, not in the best shape. how did they get that pitcher? a wealthier white family might have gotten rid of that pitcher, decided that was no longer of good enough quality to keep in their home so out it went. well, for an african-american family, that pitcher was still absolutely usable and so we find it here in the gilmore cabin. the oil lamp, however, would have been an item that they bought. many houses would have included three or four oil lamps. the gilmores might have had one.

one of the other unique features of the gilmore cabin, is the fact it has two fireplaces. remember, george, a 70-year-old man, or 65-year-old man i suppose when he built this cabin. built his cabin by himself with the help of only three teenaged sons. the fact that he could build the cabin tells us about his carpentry skills, but the fact that he could build a working chimney with two fireplaces, one downstairs and one upstairs, leads credence to his ability as a craftsman. building a stone chimney is no easy feat. building one with two functioning fireplaces really quite astounding. this ladder stair is very common in cabins of this period. a way to save space. you didn't have to built a whole

stairwell and material. the upstairs divide into two rooms as you can see. probably used for storage and for sleeping quarters for the five kids that the gilmores had. this back room, you can see the second fireplace that george built. of course, the cabin has no insulation, and you saw the floorboards and the gaps between them downstairs, you can imagine how chilly, this would have been in the wintertime. chances are good that especially in the wintertime when it got cold, all five kids huddled around this fireplace to sleep and stay warm. george and polly had the bed downstairs and that was actually a mark of status, having -- showing -- your bed was a way to show off what wealth you had.

and who knows? maybe in the cold weather, they too moved their bed closer to the fire. very little of the cabin had to be replaced during the restoration. you can see a few boards up here in the ceiling that are new material, but most of the ceiling is original, as are the partition walls and the floors. in fact, when we go back downstairs, i can point out a few elements that did have to be replaced downstairs. the fireplaces were the only means of heating this cabin. the gilmore -- the wood stoves were available. the gilmores certainty couldn't afford one. you notice how low the ceilings are. i have to duck to get between the ceiling joists. george gilmore was indeed a tall

man. why build ceilings so low. a lot of people will say people were shorter back then. that's not true. you build ceilings low to retain the heat. the higher the ceiling, the colder your room. the only heat are you getting is from the fireplace, which does not shed nearly the heat that a wood stove will. you want to have minimal doors, minimal windows and as short a ceiling you can stand if you want to stay warm in the wintertime. you will notice this floor this is all new wood this has to be replaced. the original floor had completely rotted away by the time we restored the cabin. most of this wood came from a shipyard in new england as i recall. finding these wide sawn planks was difficult as i recall. only one ceiling joist has to be replaced in the entire cabin, and that's right here.

compare this to this, you can sort of see the difference. and the only other thing that needed to be replaced on the cabin was the doors and the front porch. so after george and polly died, the cabin, and the farm. the next -- one of their sons, william built an addition to this side of the cabin. a framed editio ed addition, ant the carpenter his father was, so it was in more dire state and, unfortunately, more unsalvagable. one of the things i found interesting when i started reconstructing the gilmore ca n cabin, was the political history of this time period. many of us feel like after the civil war, lee surrendered to grant, the sleighs were freed,

and everybody lived happily ever after. lee surrendered to grant in 1865, and yet the 13th amendment of the constitution which outlaws slavery in the united states wasn't passed by the federal government until december of 1865, it took them eight months to determine whether or not slavery really should be outlawed. it's hard for to us believe that. that it would take that long in this day and age. the 14th amendment which granted african-americans equal protection under the law was not passed until 1868 so they had to wait another three years for that right. and african-american men weren't given the right to vote until 1869, so even another year for that. the freedman's bureau, a very, very small federal agency, was in charge of sort of managing

the south and -- and making sure that african-americans did receive fair and equal treatment in the south. by the late 1870s, early 1880s, all had written new state constitutions and had been riyadh mitted to the union. as each stayed was re-admitted to the union, the freedman bureau left the state and left the state in the hands of its own state government. it didn't take long for those state governments to start passing different laws and different state constitutions and to find loopholes in the constitutions that they had written and by the mid 1880s, the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, while they still existed in the constitution, were virtually null and void in

the deep south and this ushered in the period of jim crow. welcome to the 1910 train depot at james madison's montpelier, located between route 20 and the norfolk southern railway. in 1910, this railroad belonged to southern rail. and mr. dupont, the owner of montpelier at the time, wanted the train to stop for him and in order to have that happen, he needed to build a train station, so he did. come on inside and i'll show it to you. the history at montpelier is very interesting in the dupont era, because, of course, the duponts were not a southern family. the duponts, especially william and annie dupont, had actually lived in europe for a number of years before coming back to america where they chose to settle out here in western

virginia. so they were coming into a different social atmosphere than they were accustomed to. either in delaware or where weather tthe family was in europe. and in the south, things were segregated. they were in the north to a lesser extent and certainly they weren't in europe. since he was living in the south, he to abide by customs, with a segregated set of waiting rooms. there were segregated kitchens and dining rooms for the laborers. segregated housing, and yet when it came to work, he gave people autonomy, based on their merit. his building foreman on the property was mitchell jackson, cho w who is a black man descended from one of the slaves at

montpelier. another black man was one of the chief horse trainers. they did not segregate when it came to jobs and getting the best men for the job. as we leave this space and go over to the other side of the building, we have the freedom to do that today. from the 1880s until the 1960s, separate but equal was the way it was, was the law. in the south. imagine leaving this room and not being able to enter the next room. so as you can see, the white waiting room is twice as large as the color the waiting room. has more space, bigger stove,

windows that look out on the tracks. nice view. and an actual door to access the station master's office. one of the interesting things about the montpelier train depot is the fact that the waiting rooms are segregated. but the thing that traveled most frequently on the trains across america, was not passengers or freight. it was mail. u.s. mail ran -- was delivered by train. and train stations became post offices, almost universally, so because the post office was the federal space, it had to be sectioned off to itself. the wire cage you see there is historically accurate to the 1910 period. the u.s. postal service, though,

was never segregated. and so if you were coming to buy a ticket to ride the train, and you were an african-american, you had to walk through the colored door. but if you were an african-american who lived in the montpelier station area, walk through a separate door along with your white neighbor and came in through the same door to the same space and got your mail together. the station agent at montpelier didn't just sell tickets to passengers who wanted to ride the train. the station agent was also in charge of the telegraph, and later the tell phone, to make sure that the trains were safe to travel down the tracks. remember, there is only one set of tracks and trains running in both directions. if there is a train coming north from charlottesville area, the station agent has to make sure

that his track is clear from here to charlottesville. with trains heading south. the restoration of the train station started in 2008, after the mansion was finished. we received funding through the transportation enhancement act. we got a grant from the federal government to help us do this. private donations, especially from the family of russell coffin childs. the restoration was quite an effort. the station was really falling down. the post office had been moved to the colored waiting room. in fact, about a dozen years ago when i started working at montpelier, the post master had this space as his office. this wire cage was still in place and where this box of mail slots was, was his little window to speak to the people who came

into the post office. what we decided to do was -- was the montpelier post office was very important to the local community and we didn't want to lose that. so what we decided to do, move the post office to the far room of the station which is beyond this wall, which is what was called the freight room. and that's where all of the freight from the trains was stored until it was placed on the trains themselves. so it was a big, empty room. moved the post master and the post office over there and decided to open this up as an exhibit space. the decision to -- whether or not to put the white and colored signs over the doors of the train station, was a very contentious one. we consulted any number of people, including the african-american historical society in orange and a number of consultants, people like roger wilkins, rebecca gilmore

coleman, lenny sorensen, people who are in the field of african-american history. i would say overwhelmingly the response we got was yes. put them back. people need to be made aware of what life was like, not all that long ago. there were, however, a number of people who were -- who did not want to see us put the signs over the doors. the jim crow period was a very painful part of our history, and a lot of people who lived through it, didn't want to relive it. i guess the montpelier foundation and the majority of the people that we talked to, decided that in the end, it was better to show the history than to hide it. people -- people stop me at the mansion and ask me what that -- what's going on at the train station? because to see that colored sign over the door, from a public

highway, is shocking to people today. we have to remember, i think, that that's what life was like for the better part of the 20th century here in the american south. one of the unique opportunities at montpelier is our ability to tell not just the story of american history, but the story of african-american history from beginning to present. the first people that settled at montpelier were african-american slaves that ambers madison sent here in 1723. we can tell the story of african-american life in slavery through the civil war, and we have the civil war history at montpelier, and then we have the reconstruction era history at montpelier, the story of the gilmore family and their progress through the late 19th century to the 20th century. the train station here tells the story of