Kentland Farm Historic and Archeological District (Boundary Increase)

Kentland Farm is a historic plantation property near Blacksburg, Virginia, established by James Randall and Mary Cloyd Kent, with a mid-1830s brick farmhouse at its center. This amendment to the district adds one contributing site, a slave cemetery identified in 2004 and 2005. Local oral history from the Wake Forest community, whose members are largely descended from people enslaved at Kentland, led researchers to the site. Five exploratory trenches revealed 24 grave shafts and several post molds on a ridge top northeast of the farmhouse. Other excavations near the farmhouse uncovered the buried remains of a detached kitchen, a possible early structure in the east yard, and a slave quarter later used as a tenant house. Researchers also found a Late Woodland prehistoric occupation with New River Ware ceramics. Together, these findings show how much the property can reveal about Native American settlement and plantation life in Southwest Virginia.