Wednesday, October 11, 2023 - 11:50am
By Nicholas Bourgeois, M.A., R.P.A., Archeologist, Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site
In 2005, researcher Antony Cherian interviewed Thomas C. Hendricks, whose ancestors were enslaved workers at Levi Jordan Plantation, as part of an oral history program documenting the plantation and its relationship to the community.
At the time of the interview, Hendricks had lived in...
Tuesday, September 12, 2023 - 8:39am
By Nicholas Bourgeois, M.A., R.P.A., Archeologist, Levi Jordan Plantation
Bricks are the most common type of artifact found at the Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site. They were handmade by the enslaved laborers from local clay and fired on-site in kilns.
The bricks were used to construct the main house’s chimneys, water cisterns, sugar mill, and sections of many...
Wednesday, July 12, 2023 - 2:49pm
By Reece Black, Archeology Lab Technician, Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site
Stoneware ginger beer bottle fragments are recovered from archeological sites across the world. Sites in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and the United States have produced many specimens. Here in Brazoria County, we find these artifacts at former plantations and 19th-century townsites. This...
Wednesday, July 5, 2023 - 12:17pm
Ginny McNeill Raska was born to Levi Jordan McNeill, Jr. and Mary Eloise Dance McNeill on June 20, 1952, in Brazoria County. At the time of her birth, her parents lived on the old Mims Plantation along the San Bernard River. Her great-great-grandfather, James Calvin McNeill, had purchased the property around 1880 and built a new home in the early 1900s after the original plantation house had...
Wednesday, March 8, 2023 - 1:30pm
Jesse James Mack was born to York and Ola Jammer Mack on June 3, 1950 in Matagorda County. At the time of his birth, Jesse’s parents were living on the grounds of the Levi Jordan Plantation. York Mack worked as a ranch foreman for Harry Martin, a descendant of Levi Jordan.
Jesse’s father died suddenly, shortly after Jesse was born, and his mother Ola moved off of the plantation not...
Thursday, June 2, 2022 - 10:03am
On June 19, 1865, Union troops in Texas began to enforce the end of slavery following the Civil War. Approximately 250,000 enslaved Black Texans had new legal status.
Among these were people who had been enslaved at Varner-Hogg Plantation in West Columbia and Levi Jordan Plantation in Brazoria, both of which are now THC state historic sites. In this...
Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - 4:46pm
By William Polley, Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site Educator
Since Texas’ colonization, people of African descent have been contributing to the state and its history. With their arrival in Texas as early as 1528, African Americans—whether enslaved or free—were instrumental in settling Spanish Texas.
When Texas was part of New Spain, enslaved African...
Friday, April 24, 2015 - 8:00am
By Jacob Lyons, Archeological Collections Assistant
At the Texas Historical Commission’s Curatorial Facility for Artifact Research (CFAR), curatorial staff has been working for the last two years to process and document a large artifact collection excavated from Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site in Brazoria County. The collection is composed of objects from enslaved people’s...
