Download [Page] [Document]
mcc-ns1-037
Farming For A Better Future, page 11

31 Belmont Plantation Also referred to as the Belle Mont Mansion, Belmont Plantation has been described as “a rare Southern example of architectural ‘Jeffersonian Classicism'” for its near direct connection to the architectural styles and families of Virginia. The house was built for Dr. Alexander W. Mitchell of Virginia sometime between 1830 and 1833. Mitchell quickly sold the house and 1,680-acre property to Isaac Winston (1795-1863), (Below) 1860 Non-Population, Agricultural Census Showing Isaac Winston's Land (National Archives and Records Administration via Ancestry.com) another Virginia-born planter who settled in Tuscumbia in the 1820s. According to the 1830 federal census, Winston's household included 31 slaves. By 1840 when he moved to the large manor, he owned 62 slaves. In 1850, Winston's plantation had no less than 99 slaves. At the end of his life and the beginning of the Civil War, Isaac Winston owned two plantations, one in the vicinity of Tuscumbia - Belmont, which by then was 2,800 acres and had at least 23 slaves - and another in Courtland, Lawrence County, Alabama, which had at least 17 slaves on 2,000 acres. (Above) Barn at Belmont, 1936 (Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress) (Right) Cabin at Belmont, 1936 (Historic American Buildings Survey, Library of Congress 11 - COLBERT - (4539)