Henrico's 250th Week at Meadow Farm Asks Whose Side You'd Have Taken
October 15, 2026
October 15, 2026
If you had lived in Henrico in 1781, would you have signed for independence? And would signing have made you any freer?
On Saturday, November 7, Meadow Farm Museum at Crump Park in Glen Allen will ask visitors the first question directly. At "1776: Signing Day," the county frames it like this: "Will you join those signing their names for independence, or remain faithful to the King?" The second question runs through the rest of the week. Henrico County has planned its America 250 programming so that one Glen Allen farm hosts five straight days of it, from Wednesday, November 4 through Sunday, November 8. The local stories it tells don't line up neatly behind the fireworks version of 1776.
The address is 3400 Mountain Road, Glen Allen. From most of Short Pump and Twin Hickory, it's a short drive across the county's northern side. Here's how the week lays out, from the county's VA250 Henrico page:
The Hamilton screening is the one the county clearly bills as free. The listings for the other events don't mention a price, registration, age guidance beyond the London Pleasants talk, rain plans or parking. The county has posted two contacts. For the talks, trivia and movie, write [email protected]. For Signing Day and the Mobile Museum, write [email protected].
The Mobile Museum is called "Out of Many, One." It's run by the American Revolution 250 Commission, known as VA250. It travels in a 53-foot expandable tractor-trailer. A host site needs a space at least 95 feet long and up to 40 feet wide to set it up. According to VA250, two units have been on the road since January 2025, and they've had more than 60,000 visitors.
The museum has already been to Richmond this year. WRIC reported that it parked at the Virginia State Capitol in late February 2026 with the same "Out of Many, One" exhibit. The Glen Allen stop gets you the same exhibit with farm fields around it and four afternoons to choose from. Henrico says it timed the trailer's Wednesday-through-Saturday stay to line up with the county's annual 250th events.
The Wednesday-night talk at the Parsons Community Center tells a Henrico story from 1781. London was 14 years old and enslaved by Robert Pleasants in January 1781. That month, Benedict Arnold's troops crossed Henrico on their way to Richmond, trying to capture Governor Thomas Jefferson. Along the way they raided Pleasants' Curles Neck Plantation.
According to the county's account, London freed himself and enlisted in Arnold's "American Legion," a battalion of American-born loyalists. He served as a trumpeter and stayed with Arnold's division through the end of the war. He was recorded in New York City on September 18, 1783, boarding the ship Elizabeth for St. John's, Newfoundland. The county's summary puts it this way: "London found his own route to freedom."
So the same Saturday prompt about signing for independence or staying loyal to the King reads differently after Wednesday's talk. For a 14-year-old in eastern Henrico in 1781, the side that offered a way out of slavery was the King's. The county's own description of the talk calls him "a Black Loyalist" and promises to cover what became of him after the Revolution.
Henrico has also put London's story somewhere you can see it any day of the week. Using a grant from Virginia Tech and the Virginia Association of Museums, the recreation department commissioned a mural of him by artist Jowarnise Caston. It's at Four Mile Creek Park on New Market Road in Varina, the busiest trailhead on the Capital Trail. The mural is finished. The site connects to another Pleasants story too. In the 1799 case Pleasants v. Pleasants, Robert Pleasants went to court to enforce his father's 1771 will, which called for freeing the family's enslaved workers. The court's ruling led to the free Black community of Gravel Hill.
The 250th could have come to almost any county park. Meadow Farm makes sense because the farm's own history turns on choices made under slavery.
The farmhouse was built in 1810 and expanded in 1820. The last owners were Sheppard Crump and Elizabeth Adam Crump. Elizabeth Adam Crump donated the farm to Henrico in 1975 in memory of her late husband, and it opened to the public as a museum in 1981. The site covers Native American history, African American history and several generations of the Sheppard family. Its three permanent exhibits deal with Native American history, Gabriel's rebellion and the Parsons family.
The Gabriel exhibit comes out of an event on this land. In 1800, Gabriel, who was enslaved at nearby Brookfield Plantation, organized a planned insurrection. Two men enslaved by the Sheppards, Tom and Pharaoh, reported the plan. That happened twenty-four years after 1776, on the property where Henrico is now staging Signing Day.
The building that hosts the London Pleasants talk and Hamiltrivia carries part of this history in its name. Henrico named the Parsons Community Center in fall 2021 for the enslaved workers associated with the Sheppards from 1809 to 1939. On Wednesday night, a talk about a Black Loyalist from Henrico will take place in a room named for the people enslaved on this farm.
Much of the county's VA250 programming fits the same frame. The calendar opened on October 4 with "Phillis Wheatley and Her Legacy," a program at the Eastern Henrico Rec Center on the poet the county calls the poet laureate of the American Revolution. The county also says on its VA250 page that it plans to keep offering programs after 2026, aimed at "dialogue on what liberty, freedom, and how the legacy of events 250 years ago shape the present."
Meadow Farm is one of 70 historic sites in the statewide Virginia 250 Passport program. The Virginia Museum of History & Culture coordinates it. If you're going to Mountain Road in November anyway, the stamp is an easy add. Here's how the program works, from the VMHC Passport FAQ:
The timing matters. A Meadow Farm stamp on November 7 leaves a little over three weeks to collect four more before the sweepstakes deadline. Richmond-area participants include Historic St. John's Church, The Valentine, Wilton House Museum, the John Marshall House, the Virginia Museum of History & Culture and the Black History Museum & Cultural Center of Virginia. St. John's or the Black History Museum would make good stops after a week that kept returning to who got to be free.
If you'd like to see the farm before the 250th crowds arrive, two October dates are already on the county calendar. On Friday, October 16, there's a Movie in the Park at Meadow Farm from 7 to 9 p.m. The county hasn't announced the film yet. On Saturday, October 24, Trough or Treat runs from 2 to 5 p.m. with a pasture walk, treats and prizes, and pumpkin archery for all skill levels. Costumes are encouraged but not required.
On any visit, the grounds are open daily from dawn to dusk. Farmhouse tours are by appointment, and the Parsons Community Center keeps seasonal hours. Crump Park around the museum has playgrounds, picnic shelters, trails, open fields and a fishing pond. A family that plans the week well could hear London's story on Wednesday, sit in the field for Hamilton on Friday, and come back Saturday to make their choice at Signing Day.
At Terri Brennan Homes, we keep track of what's happening at places like Meadow Farm because it's part of knowing Henrico street by street. Plenty of homes in Glen Allen and Short Pump are an easy drive from Mountain Road. If you're wondering what your home is worth this fall, request a free home valuation and we'll put together a local answer.
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