The House For Families

The slaves living at the Mansion House farm were housed in communal quarters. The House for Families, pictured on the left, was used until 1793. Archaeologists excavating the site 200 years later uncovered many objects, which helped us discover how slaves in the House for Families lived.

Some slaves lived above their place of work, such as the kitchen or carpentry shop. Others lived in quarters adjacent to the greenhouse. Although we know a great deal about many of the slaves living on the estate, the records tell us very little about how the living spaces were assigned or who lived in each quarter.

Mount Vernon exhibit showing the interior of one of the Greenhouse slave quarters at the Mansion House Farm.

Housing for slaves living on the outlying farms was considerably worse than the housing for slaves on the Mansion House farm. The field slaves lived in small wooden cabins with dirt floors. The cabins were drafty, meagerly furnished, and hard to keep clean.