History
Lumpkin’s Jail was owned by Robert Lumpkin, whose compound included lodging for slave traders, a slave holding facility, an auction house, and a residence for his family. Enslaved Africans held for auction at Lumpkin's Jail referred to it as "the Devil's Half Acre." In 1867 Mary Lumpkin, a black woman who was his widow, rented the complex to a Christian school, a predecessor institution of Virginia Union University.