Waverly

WAVERLY PLANTATION . Waverly Plantation, a large cotton and sugar plantation named for Walter Scott's Waverly , was located across the Brazos River from Orozimbo Plantation in central Brazoria County and included the old Bolivar Landing. The plantation belonged to William Kennedy, who was born in Scotland and came to Texas from Camden, South Carolina, where he first settled in 1830. Kennedy established the plantation on 400 acres of land purchased in 1842 and added 2,214 acres in 1848. He did not bring his family to Texas until after his South Carolina plantation, Snow Hill, was left in ruins by the Civil War . Waverly Plantation comprised a main house located on Oyster Creek, slave cabins on the opposite bank, a blacksmith shop, a cotton gin, and a commissary, as well as a church for the slaves. In 1860, according to the census of that year, the plantation, then operated by Kennedy's twenty-two-year-old son, William H., had 124 slaves who worked 975 improved acres to produce 600 bushels of corn and 807 bales of cotton. In that year Kennedy had real property valued at $36,800 and personal property valued at $127,330. Little is known about Waverly after the Civil War, but it is likely that operations ceased with the decline of the plantation economy. A portion of the plantation land later became part of the Ramsey unit of the Texas Department of Corrections ( see   PRISON SYSTEM ).