House for Enslaved Laborers, Walboro Farm

This is a virtual tour of a frame outbuilding at Walboro Farm in Middlesex County, which likely housed people who were enslaved by Philemon Taylor Woodward. Census records show that Woodward enslaved twelve people in 1860 and had three “slave houses” on his property, although the identities of the people who lived in each home were not recorded. After emancipation, according to census records, free Black people occupied the structure. In the early twentieth century, a Black woman named Sarah Taylor Ruffin lived there—some local residents still refer to it as "Sarah’s house.”

Woodward moved to Walboro in 1853 and constructed his two-story main house soon afterwards. This outbuilding, about 275 feet from the main house, was most likely a “field quarter” constructed at about the same time. The building is 16’5” wide and 18’4” long, with modern board-and-batten siding which is probably similar to the original siding. The original roof was most likely metal but is now fitted with asphalt shingles. The fireplace, located on the west wall of the structure, has two small openings which seem to have served as windows.