In the 1890's, life was much as it had been at Sweet Briar following the Civil War. The
plantation was isolated, there was no running water, no electricity, no heat, and no
transportation other than horse and carriage. There were some farm animals, and crops were
planted seasonally for the market by hired hands, the fruit trees still bore, and a
kitchen garden yielded the necessary vegetables in the summer months. Indiana had gone
into the cattle-raising business in 1987 with Steven Harding but told the Paynes that
except for the profit, she disliked the business intensely. In spite of the farm schedule
and those hired to oversee the operations, Indiana felt very much isolated and her last
years were lonely.
Signora Smith Hollins, who had been brought to Sweet Briar plantation as a playmate for
Daisy Williams in the early 1870's by her Aunt Rose, the Williams' cook, reminisced in
1951 about the post-Civil War plantation "The house was surrounded by forest, heavy
forest. There was an iron fence all around the yard and one gate went out to the road. A
big mean guard dog was tied to the fence post to keep strangers out. When someone came the
dog had to be moved." She continued, "There were lots of big box bushes in the
yard where we girls played house, and a pond in the little valley in front of the house
where we pretended to fish." Ice was cut from this pond in winter to store in the ice
house for summer use.
The road that Signora mentioned was the old plantation wagon road that wound down into the
present day college hunt field and pasture. It twined through the present day lake bed,
wound its way up the hill and joined Waugh's Ferry Road and on to Amherst. Traces of the
road may still be found running for several hundred yards behind the last remaining slave
cabin on the property.
The small house next door to and in the shadow of Sweet Briar House in earlier days was
the two-room plantation office. In the 1840's Sidney Fletcher used it as a medical office,
but later one room was kept for transient help such as the man who came to shear sheep
each year. Later, Indiana used it for rental property. It was the cottage tenant in 1900,
Mrs. Camille Farrar, who discovered Indiana's lifeless body at the foot of Daisy's bed in
the room used today as the President's dining room.
After Indiana was widowed in 1889 she did not operate her plantation full volume,
nevertheless she never sold any of her lands. Her real estate holdings increased markedly
when her sister Elizabeth died in 1890 and brother Sidney 1898. Neither had children.
Sidney's plantation, Tusculum, seven miles north of Sweet Briar, was left to a cousin,
John J. Williams, but all of his other properties went to Indiana. Elizabeth Mosby's Mt.
San Angelo and her other properties in Virginia and West Virginia also came back to
Indiana. In her last years, Indiana found herself collecting rents on 23 local farms.
Nevertheless she managed her lands and investments with shrewdness until her death. She
took her bookkeeping seriously -- after all, she excelled in the subject in her days at
the Georgetown Visitation Convent, where she received a ticket of merit in Bookkeeping.
In one of his depositions at the court hearings in 1900, Captain Edgar Whitehead, not only
a retired sheriff of Amherst County, but also the local tobacco agent for many years, told
a story about Indiana as one example of her business acumen.
One day shortly after the Civil War broke out, Indiana invited Captain Whitehead to come
over to Sweet Briar on a matter of business. Upon his arrival, Indiana told him that she
had a substantial amount of cash in Confederate notes - "a whole barrel full,"
Whitehead said. She indicated that she wanted to put the money - "all of it" -
into leaf tobacco. Whitehead said that he would gladly handle the transactions for her.
Indiana divested herself of the bulk of her southern money early in the war, holding out
just enough for running expenses, reinvested in northern securities and tobacco, waited
until the war was over and cashed it all in for "good Yankee gold." "She
made an enormous profit on her tobacco," Captain Whitehead said. Indiana and her
brother Sidney were firm believers in the strength of the north; their views were more
northern than southern. Indian did not espouse her political views, but her actions spoke
for themselves. Sidney, however, became a Republican after the war, and according to
Captain Whitehead, his neighbors never forgave him!
No one knew the extent of Indiana's estate until after her death, with the exception of
her New York attorney, and she volunteered no information as to her intentions for
distribution of her estate, but like a quiet little spider diligently weaving its
intricate web, she saved, harbored, and carefully invested every cent for her future
school. She was well aware of local curiosity and gossip, but she did not reveal her
plans. When her will was read and put into motion, she had created a local furor. Her
estate was worth $750,000 in 1900; today it would be worth millions. She had the
intelligence and foresight to predict local reactions, but her will stood like a rock
against the storm that buffeted it. When the storm was over, her dream was realized and
Sweet Briar Plantation became Sweet Briar College.
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