Take a trip back in time and experience Meadow Park Museum, one of the stops on the Civil War Trails.

It’s no secret that Virginia saw a lot of action during the Civil War, after all, Richmond is the former capital of the Confederacy. The Commonwealth has developed multiple Civil War Trails to give visitors a sense of the geography and chronology of those tumultuous years.  One of the Civil War Trails includes Meadow Park Museum, a former private residence restored to be a living museum of antebellum life. The actual property was settled in 1713 and grew alongside the colony of Virginia, and the United States itself.  

Home to the Sheppard and then Crump families, Meadow Farm was the signature first-grade field trip at my kids’ elementary school -- and I volunteered to chaperone every single time. This farm takes you back in time as you see the equipment used to farm, the lazy fences, and the rustic sheds and barns. Farmers on the property are happy to answer questions about the resident livestock, or the beautiful antebellum garden. 

The buildings on the property include the “big house”, a tobacco drying barn, and the one-room Doctor’s Office used by Dr. John Mosby Sheppard. Tobacco was the ultimate cash crop in Virginia and Meadow Farm cashed in. Home to dozens of enslaved people through the decades, Meadow Farm also had a pivotal role in the foiling of a plot of a group of people planning to kidnap Governor James Monroe. The buildings and what remains of the original 400 acres offer seasonal events throughout the year with historic interpreters to demonstrate the way life used to be before electricity, the internet, and cars.