Berkeley Plantation, one of the first great estates in America, comprises about 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the banks of the James River on State Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia. Berkeley Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred and named after the Berkeley Company of England. Benjamin Harrison IV built on the estate what is believed to be the oldest three-story brick mansion in Virginia and is the ancestral home to two Presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, his grandson, and Benjamin Harrison his great-great-grandson.
Among the many American "firsts" that occurred at Berkeley Plantation are:
- The first official Thanksgiving: 4 December 1619
- The first bourbon whiskey distilled: 1621, by George Thorpe, an Episcopal priest.
- First time Army bugle call "Taps" played: July 1862, by bugler Oliver W. Norton; the melody was written at Harrison's Landing, the plantation's old wharf, by Norton and then General Daniel Butterfield.
Read more about Berkeley Plantation: History, Restoration, Exterior
Famous quotes containing the words berkeley and/or plantation:
“I had rather be an oyster than a man, the most stupid and senseless of animals.”
—George Berkeley (1685–1753)
“Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kow-tow before any United States pro-consul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.”
—Andrei Andreyevich Gromyko (1909–1989)