Greenfield, also known as Col. William Preston Plantation, Preston House, and Botetourt Center at Greenfield, is a historic plantation site located at Fincastle, Botetourt County, Virginia. The first plantation established by surveyor, militia officer and burgess William Preston (1729-1783) and which used enslaved labor beginning with his purchase of 16 Africans from the ship True Blue on August 28, 1759 in Nanjemoy, Maryland for 752pounds (to avoid a 5% Virginia sales tax), Greenfield became one of Botetourt County's largest plantations, encompassing more than 1,200 acres by the 1770s.[3] In 1774 Col. Preston moved his family to another plantation, Smithfield, and a series of white overseers managed the farm, orchard and distillery at Greenfield.[4]
Because fire had destroyed the plantation house in 1959, and the only remaining historic buildings were kitchen/quarters (c. 1832) and saddlebag slave dwelling (c. 1850), which were moved to the Bowyer-Holladay House nearby, although listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2011, Greenfield was delisted in January 2022.[1][5]
