Edmund Ruffin Plantation

The Edmund Ruffin Plantation, also known as Marlbourne, is a National Historic Landmark in Hanover County, Virginia, about eleven miles northeast of Richmond. The house was built in 1840 and was purchased in 1843 by Edmund Ruffin, an agricultural reformer often called the father of American soil science for his work on crop rotation and soil conservation. Ruffin later became a prominent secessionist and is credited with firing one of the first shots at Fort Sumter in 1861; he took his own life in 1865 after the Confederate surrender. The house combines Georgian and Greek Revival elements and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1964, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1966, and added to the Virginia Landmarks Register in 1969.