"The rolling hills and lush valleys around Middleburg, Virginia are known today as the "Heart of the Virginia Hunt Country." But in the 1700s, when this story begins, it was a desolate and dangerous land, crisscrossed by the flowing waters of Goose Creek, occupied by roving Indian tribes, bears, and wild boars hovering in the shadow of Bull Run and the Blue Ridge Mountains." "Old Plantations details the lives of the adventures, Quakers and Germans from Pennsylvania, and sons of the Virginia Tidewater aristocracy, who settled this land called the Piedmont. By the late eighteenth century, they had created homes, farms, schools, churches, a judicial system, inns, mills, and twisting, tree-lined byways which still wind around the countryside." "Illustrated with over two hundred pictures, including a number in color, the stories of twenty-three manor homes which have survived from "the Golden Age" are recounted here. Whether they began life as rude log cabins, stone tenant houses, or grand manors, they stand as a testament to the settlers who conquered a wilderness and created a way of life which, in many respects, has survived for more than two centuries."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved