Berkeley Plantation, Charles City

Berkeley Plantation, one of the first plantations in America, comprises about 1,000 acres (400 ha) on the banks of the James River on State Route 5 in Charles City County, Virginia. Berkeley Plantation was originally called Berkeley Hundred and named after the Berkeley Company of England. In 1726, Benjamin Harrison IV built on the estate one of the first three-story brick mansions in Virginia. It is the ancestral home to two Presidents of the United States: William Henry Harrison, his grandson, and Benjamin Harrison his great-great-grandson. It is now a museum property, open to the public.

Among the many American "firsts" that occurred at Berkeley Plantation are:

First time Army bugle call "Taps" played: July 1862, by bugler Oliver W. Norton; the melody was written at Harrison's Landing, the plantation's old wharf, by Norton and then General Daniel Butterfield.

American whiskey was originally distilled at Berkeley Plantation in 1620.