Peninsula In Passage

The End of an Era – Plantations to Truck Farms The end of the Civil War brought an end to the plantation way of life. Slaves no longer worked the fields and owners were often unable to pay wages to farmhands. Some large plantation tracts were divided and sold for taxes. Marriage as well as division by wills and inheritance divided other large farms. Farmers from northern states moved to the area, bought up large tracts of farmland and began truck farming. In 1840 the population of Nansemond County was 10,795 with 4,858 white, 4,430 slave and 1,407 free blacks. Emancipation changed the work force as well as the social dynamic between owners and field laborers. By 1883 the population had increased to 15,903 with 7,728 white and 8,177 blacks. Many blacks worked as “hands” on truck farms and others moved north to work in manufacturing. Small communities of blacks sprang up in Nansemond County. A Mr. Lord and Mr. Morrison bought property along the road between Driver and Wilroy near the intersection of Sleepy Hole Road and resold it to blacks. The intersection was called Morrison’s Fork and the post office (operating 1871 – 1872) was named Lordsville Post Office. Lordsville was even a voting precinct at one time. Huntersville and Pughsville grew into small villages. Years later the self-sufficient black community of Belleville developed on Bridge Road.

Passage to the 20th Century Railroads

Railroads helped shape our economy in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and also helped shape where and how people lived. Just as settlements came into being along waterways in earlier days, after 1834 villages began to develop along the rails. The railroads brought the mail and manufactured goods and carried farm products to market. Travel became far easier that it had been before. Even a Saturday day trip into town became easier and more

frequent for farm families. Nansemond, Beamon, Wilroy, Driver, Deans, Pughs, Peake, and Bruce were all stations on the ACL, Seaboard, and Norfolk, Franklin and Danville lines. Driver Station In 1886 the crossroads community originally known as Persimmon Tree Orchard became a valuable railroad stop when the Western Branch Railroad was chartered to build a line from Pinners Point to the truck farms in Nansemond and Norfolk Counties. Twelve miles of spurs to farms were completed to Driver by 1887–1888. Later it became part of the Atlantic Coast Line, which connected farms in Winton, NC and

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