Historic Park

A walk through time, close to home

• Residential area backs up to 124 acre historic park
• Unique ties on site to Colonial, Revolutionary, and Civil War history
• Miles of walking and jogging trails
• Great natural environment for your family

Totopotomoy Battlefield at Rural Plains Foundation

The 124-acre Shelton property is all that remains of the original 5000-acre King's grant. It is the only land in the United States which is in the same family from a King's grant passed down from father to son to the present. Mr. William R. Shelton is the ninth generation Shelton to live in Rural Plains.

1609 - Two years after Jamestown is settled, King James I gives Sir John Shelton of Shelton Castle in Norfolk, England, a 5000-acre grant in what is now Hanover County.

1610 - Sir John Shelton comes to Virginia to view his properties.

1667 - Sir John Shelton's grandson loads glazed English brick and other building materials into the hulls of sailing ships as ballast and sails with craftsmen to Hanover Town, a landing on the Pamunkey River.

1670 - He hauls the brick and materials to the site and starts construction of the house, known as Rural Plains, in 1667. Bricks are made on site for the interior walls, while the imported English brick makes up the outside layer of the walls. The house is completed in 1670.

1754 - Rural Plains' current Mr. Shelton has three sons and a daughter named Sarah. At age 16, Sarah marries Patrick Henry, 18, in the front parlor of Rural Plains. Patrick and Sarah spend a year farming 300 acres of the King's grant, then run a store on the road near Rural Plains until its failure two years later.

The Sheltons own Hanover Tavern at the time, and they reopen it so Patrick Henry can be an innkeeper and support his family. Here he becomes interested in the law by listening to lawyers from Hanover Courthouse talk about their cases as they take beverages, meals, and lodging at the tavern.

The Shelton family remains associated with Patrick Henry during the Revolutionary period of our history. Additionally, one brother fights with George Washington at Valley Forge, and Sarah's father is killed at the Battle of Brandywine Station in the Revolutionary War.

1864 - On May 28, the Confederate army arrives and begins building fortifications on the bluffs on the south side of Totopotomy Creek.

On May 29, the Union army arrives at Rural Plains and talks to Mrs. Shelton, who remains in the basement of the house with her three children during the next three days of battle.

The Union army uses Rural Plains as a headquarters and deploys troops along a line between the house and the north side of Totopotomy Creek.

The battle between the two armies rages for three days, with some 2,500 casualties on both sides. The Union army moves eastward on June 1st to Cold Harbor, where a major battle is fought on June 3rd, 1864.