The Settlement Recordation Project

​The Settlement Recordation Project is intended to record surviving elements of a community established by formerly enslaved people and tell its history from immediately after the Civil War to the present day. The community is shown on various maps, but its boundaries were never identified, and its story is known only to its inhabitants. 

According to oral histories conducted during the summer of 2018, its center was and remains the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church and its congregation. The community coalesced with the start of land ownership after the Civil War and thrived through the last quarter of the twentieth century. 

The project builds on research conducted and recorded in 2018 for The Settlement Oral History Project and includes submitting documentation to the Virginia Department of Historic Resources and the National Register of Historic Places for inclusion in the programs. Additional information on this is available on the Settlement Historic District webpage.