The Rev. Dr. William H. Sheppard

Historical marker location:

Warm Springs, Virginia

( Marker is at the intersection of U.S. 220 and Virginia Route 39, on the right when traveling north on U.S. 220.)

Marker installed: 1998

(28 May 1865 25 Nov. 1927).

The first slave ship to arrive in the American colonies landed in Virginia in 1619. Virginia became a center of the transatlantic slave trade, and by 1860, Virginia had the largest population of enslaved people in the United States.