Varner-Hogg Plantation

Brazoria County may not be the most happenin' place, but it certainly has some interesting history. Today Brian and I decided to take a motorcycle ride out to Varner-Hogg Plantation in West Columbia, TX. It is a beautiful piece of land, and we enjoyed a nice quiet afternoon there learning a bit of Texas history.

Varner-Hogg was originally owned by the Varner family. It was part of the Austin Colony (as in Stephen F. Austin). Basically Varner took on a contract that he had to live on the land for 10 years. He raised live stock and made distilled rum from sugar cane. After the 10 years was up Varner had had enough of the place and sold it off to Columbus Patton.

Patton owned the plantation during it's sugar mill years. 60-80 slaves worked on the plantation, about 1/3 of those being children. One of the slaves, Rachel, was his live in mistress. It is believed that he had 2 children by her. One was sent off to Europe when Patton died, and there is a young child buried in the family plot that is thought to be by her as well. Apparently Rachel felt she was the woman of the house and proceeded to treat the slaves poorly. Patton knew of this but didn't seem to do much about it. After a time Patton went "insane" and his family put him in an assylum in South Carolina. (Actually he had a brain tumor, but this was not known about at the time.) When he was sent away, the family members, who were not fond of the Rachel situation, sent her out to be with the slaves. I'm sure you can imagine that did not go over very well for Rachel considering her prior treatment of the slaves. Upon Patton's death (of Typhoid fever) a will was found. It did not release Rachel from slavery but it did give her and three other slaves annual stipends.

The sugar mill is gone, however some of the large bowls used to cook up the sugar into the form we use in cooking/baking with it in remain. They seem to only provide the purpose of mosquito breeding now...as well as a historical reminder of a very troubled time in our history.

When slave labor could no longer be used the state of Texas allowed plantation owner to use convict labor. This didn't last very long though. After an investigation into the treatment of the convicts this method was disposed of. One convict at the Varner-Hogg Plantation was found with over 600 lashes on his back from whippings.

Several people owned the plantation after Patton, but no one held on to the place for long. After slavery was abolished the land value in Brazoria dropped drastically, and then almost everythign there was lost after the hurricane in 1900 with the exception of the main house.

A former TX governor, James Hogg, bought the plantation hoping to find profit in the oil industry there. (More on that further down.) Eventually the plantation came into the hands of his daughter, Ima Hogg, and she left it to the state of Texas.