JOHN BAKER UNRAVELS HISTORY Genealogy Expert John F. Baker Jr.,
has written the most accessible and exciting work of African
American history since Roots. John F. Baker Jr. tells the story
of his great-great-grandparents who were enslaved on Wessyngton
Plantation owned by the Washington family as well as the story
of the hundreds of African Americans connected with Wessyngton
Plantation for more than two hundred years. Joseph Washington a
cousin of President George Washington from Southampton County,
Virginia founded Wessyngton Plantation outside of Nashville,
Tennessee in 1796. By 1860 it was not only the largest tobacco
plantation in America but also the second largest tobacco
plantation in the world. It encompassed more than 15,000 acres
in two states and had a slave population of 274 (the largest in
Tennessee). When the family sold Wessyngton Plantation in 1983,
it was the largest farm in America owned by direct descendants
of the original founder. Wessyngton Plantation, listed on the
National Register of