Initially, it was a plantation worked by enslaved and free people and grew tobacco, grain, and clover.

Canals and locks were constructed in the Rivanna River to transport goods, including lumber, flour, grain, and cotton-yard.

After the carding factory burned down in the 1850s and the Louisa Railroad was completed, Shadwell began to decline economically.

[3] Shadwell began as a crossroads settlement, located at the intersection of Three Notch'd and Old Mountain Roads, which may also be called Turkey Sag.

[4] It was named for the Shadwell parish in London by Peter Jefferson, a colonist and planter in central Virginia.

[7] Native American leaders, including Ontasseté often stopped at Shadwell to visit with Peter Jefferson on their way to Colonial Williamsburg.

[7] The current main house, located about two miles from the original house, was built about 1849 by Caryanne Randolph Ruffin and Colonel Frank Ruffin, Jefferson's granddaughter and Thomas Jefferson Randolph's daughter and her husband.

[7][15] Shadwell became a manufacturing town, with timber, tobacco, cotton-yard and flour being transported on the Rivanna River.

He came to own a total of 1035 acres of land from Shadwell and the Edge Hill plantation of the Randolph family of Virginia.

[21] After World War I, Shadwell grew as people began taking vacations by traveling by automobile.