Raceland of Dinwiddie County

Keeping with the theme of yesterday's post on horse racing, I thought I'd share one of Dinwiddie County's connections to thoroughbred history.

Located along Old Stage Road in east central Dinwiddie County is a historic house called Raceland, which dates back to the mid-eighteenth century and was first known as Rice's Tavern. It operated as public ordinary in the early days of the county's history. Unfortunately, not much is know about its phase as an inn.

The property eventually came into the possession of noted horseman William Wynn. The turfman constructed a racetrack and stables on the property to make it a full service horse racing and breeding operation. 

Wynn had an interesting connection with yesterday's post, William Ransom Johnson. About 1816, Wynn purchased the three year old Timoleon (sired from the famous thoroughbred Sir Archy) from Greensville County breeder Benjamin Jones. For some reason, perhaps in effort to earn a quick profit, Wynn sold Timoleon as a four year old to William Ransom Johnson's brother, Robert R. Johnson. Remorseful, Wynn sought to buy back Timoleon from Johnson ten days later for a thousand dollars more than Johnson paid for the horse. I was not able to find if Wynn was was successful in his repurchase effort, but apparently the two men worked out some kind of a deal, as Timoleon stood stud at both Wynn's and Johnson's stables before finally being sold to Col. David Dancy. Timoleon went on to sire Boston, who in turn sired the famous Kentucky thoroughbred Lexington.

Wynn appears in the 1820 census as owning thirty slaves, a number of whom most assuredly took care of and trained Wynn's equine property. In 1830, Wynn more than doubled his enslaved community, to sixty-five. By 1840 Raceland was owned by William's son, John M. Wynn. That year's census shows the younger Wynn as owning thirty-five slaves. I was not able to determine if John carried on his father's passion for horse racing or not.

The 1850 census lists the forty-four year old John M. Wynn with an assessed value of $12,000 in real estate, and the slave schedules show him owning thirty-eight slaves. He apparently employed a twenty-eight year old man named William B. Stone as an overseer. By 1860, John's slave holdings slightly dropped, to thirty-four. They lived in eight slave houses. John M. Wynn's 1860 real estate value is not noted, but showed $58, 980 in personal property.

In 1883, Moncure Marshall purchased Raceland and it stayed in the Marshall family for many generations. Today, the handsome home sits adjacent to Old Stage Road with few if any reminders of its horse racing past.