Dining Room

The connection to the basement kitchen and outdoors allowed for food to be brought into the dining area. The plantation was large and made up of many unrelated individuals and frequent visitors during most of its lived-in era. Smithfield's influence was at its peak between 1774 and 1865. In this room, issues like the American Revolution, relations with Indigenous Peoples, the War of 1812, abolition of slavery, and the Civil War were discussed with great uncertainty.

This room helps demonstrate that history and people are complicated. An example of this is Preston’s grandson, William Ballard Preston, known as Ballard. William Ballard Preston (1805-1862) inherited Smithfield from his father, James Patton Preston and would go on to live there with his family as an adult. While serving in the Virginia House of Delegates in the 1831-1832 session, Ballard argued for the abolition of slavery. While Ballard may have opposed slavery at the time, he continued to own enslaved people on this site. Thirty years later, Ballard traveled to Washington, D.C. with a delegation hoping to prevent the Civil War. The delegation met with Abraham Lincoln on April 12, 1861 without success.

After Fort Sumter fell, Ballard delivered the Virginia Articles of Secession to the Secession Convention. These articles, passed on April 17, 1861, cited the Federal Government’s “oppression of the Southern slaveholding States” as the reason for leaving the Union. Ballard was a founder of the Olin and Preston Institute, which later became Virginia Tech.