Significant to the antebellum period of Texas history and the tumultuous era of Reconstruction, this site hosted a sizable plantation operation and two-story Greek Revival-style house. Levi Jordan moved his family and 12 enslaved workers to Texas to establish a sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River in the 1840s. The site highlights the multiple perspectives and evolving relationships of those who lived and worked on the land during the 19th century. Today, the Levi Jordan Plantation provides a unique opportunity to understand the evolving agricultural history of the South and the early African American experience in Texas.
From the Blog
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...
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...
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...
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The Levi Jordan Plantation archeology lab
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