Director

<h3>The Land, Lives, and Labor exhibit was installed in 2013. This award-winning exhibit contains the stories of people that spent their lives and labor at Sotterley both enslaved and free. Discover the land and the lives through stories, artifacts, oral histories, and primary documents. This exhibit contains a list of known enslaved at Sotterley from the trans-Atlantic slave trade to Maryland Emancipation in 1864, as well as stories from those that lived at Sotterley farm before and after it became a museum in 1960. Discover a day in the life of these people that built Sotterley and those like them that built our nation.</h3>

Voiceover narration by Luke Pirtle, 2021.

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Sotterley's Corn Crib building dates from the 1800's but has some recycled materials from the 1700's. This building was used to stack corn to keep moisture and pests from the grain. Corn, wheat, and other cereal grains were the main crops at Sotterley in the 1800's although some tobacco was still grown.  Cotton was not a crop at Sotterley but was found farther south. Today, you will see displays of trades and skills used to run a farm. Native peoples once lived, hunted, and created vibrant cultures in the Tidewater region, including the land Historic Sotterley now inhabits. Before European contact and Colonial Maryland, they had thrived for thousands of years. Their presence is evident through archeological evidence and the culture and history passed down through their descendants today.  People held during slavery did much of the hard labor at Sotterley. Many enslaved people were skilled Blacksmiths, carpenters, and wheelwrights, as well as skilled in animal husbandry. 
In the 1980's the museum converted this area to exhibit space. In 2013, Sotterley's "Land, Lives, and Labor" exhibit was developed and installed here. 

Historic Sotterley 19th century Corn Crib Building with "Land, Lives, and Labor" exhibit

<p>James Bowles, the son of a wealthy London merchant, arrived in Maryland by 1699 and purchased 2,000 acres along the Patuxent River that would become known as Sotterley. His original hall-and-chamber house is dated from 1703, part of the manor house that still exists today. Bowles traded in tobacco, lumber, livestock and was an agent for the Royal African Company. Part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Bowles ordered shipments of captured Africans for his own use and to profit from the trade. The ship, Generous Jenny, arrived in 1720 at Sotterley with 218 enslaved people from the Gold Coast of Africa. At least 29 died on the middle passage from smallpox. </p><p>Bowles died in 1727 and the property to include the enslaved, passed to his widow, Rebecca Addison Bowles. Rebecca re-married in 1729, to George Plater the second. Sotterley is named for the ancestral home of the Plater family, Sotterley in Suffolk, England. Their son, George Plater the third, a contemporary of George Washington, joined the Patriot cause during the Revolution and served as 6th governor of the state of Maryland.</p><p>Having survived one war with England, Sotterley miraculously survived the War of 1812. At least 48 enslaved people freed themselves and joined the British in 1815. George Plater the fifth, the last Plater owner, sold the property to William Clarke Somerville in 1822. The land was split into smaller parcels and 1,000 acres was soon acquired by Thomas Barber. At his death, the property was inherited by Barber’s daughter, Lydia, and her stepsister, Emeline Wellmore. Emeline married Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe from Charles County and the new couple owned 400 acres that included the manor house. Slavery was still a reality at Sotterley until Maryland Emancipation Day, November 1,1864.</p><p>The last Briscoe owner, Elizabeth Briscoe Cashner, sold Sotterley in 1910 to Herbert Satterlee from New York, and his wife, Louisa Pierpont Morgan, daughter of J.P. Morgan. The Satterlee family restored the property to their romantic vision to include the house and outbuildings. Only one original, c.1830 slave cabin still exists on the property. Their daughter, Mabel Satterlee Ingalls, then acquired Sotterley and it was she who first opened it to the public by 1961. Ingalls then created a non-profit organization, the Sotterley Mansion Foundation (now Historic Sotterley Inc.), to convert it into a museum, preserving structures, and providing educational experiences to school children. Ingalls remained owner of Sotterley and managed it until her death in 1993 when it was turned over completely to the foundation.</p><p>By the 1970s, Agnes Kane Callum, from Baltimore, had traced her once enslaved ancestors to Sotterley in the 19th century. Callum then began to visit Sotterley with family and friends to show them the site where her ancestors had survived the burden of slavery and thrived. To save Sotterley from extinction, Callum aligned with owner descendant, John Hanson Briscoe to save the museum and their common heritage. Today, visitors will hear the stories of all who lived and worked here on the banks of the Patuxent River in an authentic place where our history and people come to life. A non-profit public charity, Historic Sotterley provides educational and cultural opportunities to all that leads to knowledge, understanding and healing.</p><p> </p><p>National Historic Landmark, Maryland Civil War Trails, Star Spangled Banner Trail,</p><p>National Park Service Network to Freedom, Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project site, UNESCO Slave Route Site of Memory, Chesapeake Gateways and Water-trails Network.</p><p> </p>

Historic Sotterley is a remnant of what was once an almost 6,000-acre tidewater tobacco plantation and farm. The museum interprets a history roughly from 1699-1960. A site of slavery for 165 years, Sotterley is a Middle Passage site, one of five documented first landing sites in Maryland. Sotterley was continuously owned throughout its significant history and was opened to the public in the early 1960s. Through a collaboration of descendants of owners, workers and enslaved, the museum tells the story of all who labored and lived on the property. Historic Sotterley includes year-round exhibits, walking trails, waterfront, historic buildings, and a farm. Historic Sotterley is a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO Slave Route Site of Memory.

<h3>Sotterley's Visitors' Center is housed in one of its historic structures. Known as the Knott House, the original section of the house and porch that faces Wharf Road, was built in 1910 by the owner of Sotterley as a home for the family of Charles and India Knott. Knott was the site farm manager from 1910-1960. As the years passed and the family grew, the house expanded. The house was surrounded by a large farm complex. Most of these farm buildings have since either been moved or torn down. Look around the perimeter of the house and see if you can spot some of the old farm buildings that remain. The museum has used this structure to house other families, and it was once used as an education center. Since 2009, it has housed Sotterley's Visitors' Center and Museum Store. Historic Sotterley is a non-profit 501(c)3 public charity.</h3>

Historic Sotterley Visitors' Center is where you park and check-in to the museum. The center is open during guided tour season, May-Oct. Fri.-Sat. 10 AM -4 PM, Sun. 12-4 PM.  You can buy admission to the grounds, add a guided tour to your experience, browse the Museum Store, watch an introductory video, become a supporter to help us preserve history, refresh yourself, use necessary facilities and more.  Please check Sotterley's website, www.sotterley.org for holiday or special event closures before your visit. 
Historic Sotterley grounds are open seven days a week most every day of the year, 10 AM-4 PM. When the visitor center is closed, please help us maintain the site by dropping your grounds fee in the box provided. Pick up some information about Sotterley and download  this Sotterley tour on your Clio app.

Historic Sotterley Visitors' Center and Museum Store    Start Here! Check-in!

<h3>Standing in front of Sotterley's 18th century Warehouse (stable) is a good place to understand the complex and long history of Sotterley. Sotterley has 20 original historic buildings. These are not reconstructions. Sotterley has buildings from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.</h3><h3>Standing in front of the Warehouse(stable) and looking to your right, is the Icehouse and Sotterley's Barn, all built in the 1920s during Herbert Satterlee's ownership. A reminder that Sotterley gets its name from Sotterley in Suffolk, England, the Plater ancestral home in England. Herbert Satterlee who owned this property in the first half of the 20th century also claimed Sotterley in Suffolk as his ancestral home.</h3><h3>If you look to the left, you see Sotterley's 19th century Corn Crib Building, with farm tool displays and the "Land, Lives, and Labor" exhibit.</h3>

You are standing in front of Historic Sotterley's 18th century stable. The early museum named it the Warehouse, although historically it was used as a stable. As you look on the side of the building, you will see the date,1757.  This is accurate. Keep in mind, the owner of Sotterley from 1910-1940, Herbert Satterlee, from New York, took out the barn doors in the back and put in new terraced landscaping, using indigenous rock. Today, the Warehouse (stable) is used for a meeting place, and houses the "Urgency of Preservation" exhibit.  If you look closely to some of the original brick, you may see some fingerprints of enslaved children who were assigned tasks such as making bricks. George Plater the third,  bred horses for racing and would have boarded the animals here. 

Historic Sotterley Warehouse (18th Century Stable)

<h3>Dr. Briscoe would hire a teacher for the school he held for girls in the mid-1800s. The students would vary in age and older students would be teaching younger students by their early teenage years. Although Dr. Briscoe believed his daughters should be educated to be better wives and mothers, he was not progressive in his ideas on women's roles in society. Briscoe sons would also attend and teach at the school.</h3><h3>Miss Mary Blades taught at the school and would lead her students in literature, chemistry, biology, mathematics, geometry, astronomy, geography, French, Latin, music, and dance.</h3><h3>Enslaved children would serve the teacher and pupils at the school, bringing water, firewood, and seeing to other needs, but also learning themselves by listening and observation. Children as young as eight-years-old would be working a 12-to-14-hour day.</h3><h3>A Briscoe daughter and granddaughter would go on to become principles of St. Mary's Female Seminary, the forerunner of St. Mary's College of Maryland. During the ownership of Mabel Ingalls from 1949-1973, both gatehouses were transformed into guest cottages. The structures have been restored to their former appearance.</h3>

The North Gatehouse is the older of these two structures. It existed in the 1800s and was used as a schoolhouse for the children of the Walter and Emeline Briscoe family that owned Sotterley from 1826 to the 1880s. Other wealthy girls, including relatives of the Briscoes, boarded in the manor house all year except Christmas to attend this school. Today, it is furnished as a 19th century schoolhouse and used for Sotterley Education. 

The South Gatehouse was constructed in the mid-1920s by Herbert Satterlee. Satterlee preferred symmetry and a romanticized design, so he had this gatehouse built to match the North Gatehouse. 

Historic Sotterley North and South Gatehouses

<h3>George Plater the third inherited the property from his father in 1755, Sotterley was named for Sotterley in Suffolk, England, the Plater (Playter) ancestral home. George married first, Hannah Lee. She soon died. He then married young Elizabeth Rousby, from Rousby Hall in Calvert County. They had five children, Rebecca, George, John, Thomas, and Anne. </h3><h3>The house went through major changes between 1760-1770. George Plater added footage to the Bowles chamber room of the house on the north side. He also raised the room ceiling taking the height from the bedroom above. This large room is now known as the drawing room. Richard Bolton, a master joiner and glazier, that also designed the interiors of St. Andrews Church, created the woodwork of the room. Plater also added the entry hall and Chinese Chippindale staircase that Bolton designed that can still be seen today. This made the house much more formal and showed Plater's wealth and status. In 1790, George Plater held 93 enslaved persons. </h3><h3>When Gov. George Plater died in 1792, his son, George the fourth, inherited Sotterley. He first married Cecilia Bond and had one son, George Plater the fifth. He married second, Elizabeth Somerville, and had one daughter, Ann. Both parents, George and Elizabeth, died of disease in 1802, leaving Sotterley to their minor son, George. The boy's uncle, John Rousby Plater, became the acting administrator of Sotterley. Sometime during this period, a large attached kitchen was added to the riverside of the house, sometimes referred to as the "Briscoe kitchen" for the owners in 1826. </h3><h3>In 1815, during the War of 1812, 49 people took their freedom from Sotterley to include house servant, Peregrine Young, and cooks, Teney Merrit and Grace Munroe.</h3><h3>After the War of 1812, George Plater the fifth sold Sotterley to his step-uncle, William Clarke Somerville. Somerville broke up the property into smaller parcels and sold them. The 1,000-acre parcel that included Sotterley's manor house was sold to Thomas Barber in 1823. Three years later, Barber's daughter, Lydia, and his stepdaughter, Emeline Wellmore, inherited the property. Their husbands legally had the property divided, 600 acres to Lydia and her husband, Chapman Billingsley, and 400 acres that included the manor house to Emeline and her husband, Walter Hanson Stone Briscoe. Walter and Emeline had 13 children, Walter (d. 1840), Margaret, Henry, Samuel, Chapman, Jeannette, James, David, Sarah(Sallie),Susan, John, Mary, and Walter. Sotterley was one of the largest slave holding plantations in Maryland.</h3><h3>Except for interior colors and furnishings, Sotterley's manor house had few major changes, but by the time Walter and Emeline passed away in the late 1880s and the house was passed to their son James, and then to their granddaughter, Elizabeth Briscoe Cashner, the house was in decline and disrepair. Three generations of the Barber and Scriber families worked at Sotterley from the late 1880s to the 1960s. Some emancipated from Sotterley in 1864 left or stayed to work for wages before gaining their own property as did the Edwards and Cane families.</h3><h3>In 1910, Herbert Satterlee, a lawyer from New York, and his wife, Louisa Pierpont Morgan, daughter of J. P. Morgan, purchased Sotterley from Elizabeth Briscoe Cashner. Satterlee wanted to restore the house to his romantic vision of Colonial America and the nation's founding. Referred to as the Colonial Revival, it was a movement toward Colonial style architecture, art, furnishings, and farming. It was also about the creation of American founding stories of European nobility, superiority, and bravery, with a lot of American myth making that ignored the less noble side of America, to include the legacies of native genocide, slavery, and racism.</h3><h3> Charles Knott, hired in 1910, by Herbert Satterlee, became the farm manager. Although the Satterlee's kept the farm in operation and paid employees year-round, they were not in residence but two or three weeks a year. The Satterlee's had two daughters, Mabel and Eleanor, who were 9 and 5 years old respectively when they first came to Sotterley. Satterlee immediately started to change the landscape of Sotterley to look more like a Southern Gentleman's estate. In 1917, Satterlee had the attached 1803 kitchen on the river side of the house torn down, expanding the portico the length of the house. He then had a Colonial style kitchen added to the south end of the house, near the 19th century smoke house.</h3><h3>Upon Satterlee's death in 1940, his daughter, Mabel Satterlee Ingalls, bought Sotterley from her father's estate. Sotterley's last private owner, Ingalls had always loved the outdoors, hunting, fishing, and riding. By the 1950s, Ingalls was looking for a way to preserve Sotterley. Its upkeep was becoming too expensive. She started to sell off parcels of the 1,000-acre estate to friends from New York. By 1960, Ingalls created the non-profit, Sotterley Mansion Foundation. Today, Historic Sotterley, Inc. is a museum with its many original historic buildings on 94 acres, and stories of the people that lived and labored here. </h3><h3>During every era, Sotterley's Manor house was occupied by workers, both enslaved and free, young and old, providing for the house and the people who lived in it.</h3>

Sotterley's main house or Manor House, is sometimes referred to as the owner's house or plantation house. The first two rooms of the house were built about 1703, by the first owner the museum interprets, James Bowles, from Kent County, England. Bowles came to Maryland and bought 2,000 acres on the Patuxent River. He then built a two-room, hall-and-chamber wooden house, using post-in-ground construction that still exists within the walls of the house seen today. 
Bowles was an agent for the Royal African Company and made money from the slave trade. Sotterley is a middle passage site, meaning captured Africans were shipped from the West Coast of Africa directly to James Bowles on the Patuxent River. Slavery was a means to gain wealth for all owners until 1864. James Bowles earned his money through government posts, through exporting food and raw materials back to England, and through the slave trade. 
Like most Englishmen of wealth and power, Bowles also married women of social standing and wealth. He first married Jane Lowe. This marriage coincided with the addition to another room to the house, which he called, "The New Roome." This room is visible protruding out on the roadside of the house. Built about 1715, this was the first addition to the hall-and-chamber structure. According to a 1727 inventory, it was most likely used as a dining area at that time. Jane Lowe died in 1718. 
Bowles then married Rebecca Tasker Addison. They had three daughters, Mary, Eleanor, and Jane Bowles. James Bowles died himself in 1727. Enslaved persons listed working within the “dwelling house” in 1727 were, Doll, Pegg, Sarah, Lucy, Susan, and Blackwell. 
Rebecca remarried George Plater the second in 1729, the date on the house cupola. The house expanded, adding a dining room. The kitchen was detached. The house was raised to a full two stories. George and Rebecca had four children, Rebecca, George, Thomas, and Elizabeth.




Historic Sotterley Manor House 

This garden is cared for by the Sotterley Garden Guild, an organization made up of dedicated volunteers that keep this garden beautiful for public enrichment and enjoyment. Overlooking the Patuxent River, this garden was created during the Satterlee era of ownership 1910-1940 and maintained during Mabel Ingalls ownership. It is now maintained by the museum with the help of the Sotterley Garden Guild. When the Satterlee's purchased Sotterley in 1910, this area was a typical farm garden with vegetables, strawberries, and fruit bearing trees. One brick outhouse, or "Necessary" already existed. With the Satterlee's Colonial Revival vision, the garden was transformed to resemble an English Manor House garden, adding a brick wall, ornamental trees and shrubs, beds of flowers for every season, roses, boxwood, and herbs. A rose arbor, sundial, wishing "well" and other features for seating were added. Satterlee also created another structure that matched the "Necessary" and placed it on the opposite side of the garden for symmetry. He installed a flagpole to fly the U.S. flag, which he himself raised and lowered everyday while in residence. The garden was organized in "rooms" where garden gatherings and events could be held. Spring, Summer, and Fall is yet another glorious display for visitors to enjoy of flowers, colors, pleasant smells and views, the beautiful birds and insects, and joyful guests that inhabit these spaces.

Sotterley Colonial Revival Garden

From this location, the Riverside of the Manor House, the Patuxent River, the Smoke House, the Spinning Cottage, the house kitchen can be seen. Down the hill, the Middle Passage marker and original 19th century slave cabin can be seen.


Look at the Riverside of the Manor House. Over the centuries, the orientation of the house has changed.  In the 18th century, the riverside was considered the front of the house.  By the 19th century, the roadside was considered the front of the house. 

Look down at the river.  Across the river you see Calvert County. In the distance you will see St. Leonard Creek where a Naval skirmish took place during the war of 1812. 
If you look right toward the tree line you see the slave cabin. If you were to keep walking down this tree line you would come to Sotterley Creek.  Pay attention, you might see eagles!

Walk to the kitchen side of the manor house and you will see the Smoke House or meat house.  This was still in use well into the 20th century, smoking turkeys and hams. The white smaller house next to it is called the Spinning Cottage. It was a creation of Sotterley's last private owner, as another guest cottage. Today its used for meeting and storage space. In front of the spinning cottage is Sotterley's Star Spangled Banner Trail sign.  In 1815, 49 people, men, women, and children took their freedom and went with British forces during the War of 1812.  Some made it to Halifax, Nova Scotia. 

A few feet from the trail sign, there once was another slave quarter.  It was torn down by Herbert Satterlee in 1910.

Sotterley View of Patuxent, Smokehouse, and Spinning Cottage

<h3>Hilary Cane (circa 1820) was the patriarch of the Cane family, son of Raphael. Hilary was not held in slavery by Dr. Briscoe, but by Chapman Billingsley, Briscoe's next-door neighbor and brother-in-law. Billingsley bought Hilary, a skilled plasterer, from the James J. Gough estate in 1848. Hilary's family members, his wife, and three of their surviving children, Ellen (Nellie), George, William Francis (Frank), were held in slavery at Sotterley by Dr. Briscoe. Mariah Cane, Hilary's wife, was purchased by Dr. Briscoe in 1849 in a private sale from the Gough estate after Mariah did not bring enough on the auction block in Leonardtown. She was a laundress and spinner. The Dr. paid $500 dollars for her. Briscoe paid for her children also. The infant son, Francis (Frank) Cane cost Briscoe $50. Mariah bore two more children at Sotterley, Henrietta (Henny), and Matilda. Mariah died and was buried at Sotterley within four years.</h3><h3>Hilary then married Alice Elsa Bond and they had ten children, Temperance, Alice, Sarah, unknown, Hilary, James Henry, Mary, John. Their sons Webster and Sam were born after emancipation. Alice Elsa was a laundress and spinner, and she was also held in slavery by Dr. Briscoe.</h3><h3>The Cane family thrived spiritually and culturally even in these impossible circumstances. In fear, in hardship, cruelty and want. On November 1, 1864, slavery was abolished in Maryland and the Cane family were freed. Opportunities for freed Blacks were almost non-existent. Freedom was not the end of hardship as emancipation did not erase the traumatic legacy of racial chattel slavery. However, the Cane family eventually earned enough working for wages that they were able to buy their own homes and farms away from Sotterley. Cane, Kane, Cain, descendants of this family can be found all over the country.</h3><h3> Alice Kane Callum was a descendant of the Cane family. In the early 1970s she had traced her heritage back to Sotterley and her ancestors held in bondage. She worked tirelessly to tell their story and keep the place that they lived and survived preserved so their stories can now be told to future generations.</h3><h3> </h3>

Standing at the Slave Cabin on the land side--This is the only remaining original slave quarter at Sotterley.  One of many quarters over the centuries of slavery at Sotterley, this would have housed people who worked in or around the manor house, most likely skilled people.  There were still people living in these structures in 1910, when Herbert Satterlee purchased Sotterley. 
This cabin was built between 1830-1850 and would have housed 9 to 12 people. The Cane family, held in slavery by Dr. Briscoe in the 19th century, most likely lived in a structure like this. This cabin has been restored and preserved by the museum over the years. Visitors can enter the cabin, (watch your step and your head) and visit the award-winning Slave Cabin Exhibit. This exhibit uses Cane family oral tradition and history passed down to Agnes Kane Callum, and other research, to tell the story of a family who preserved their culture, used their ingenuity, and resisted their enslavement. Take your time to understand and reflect.  Please be respectful of your surroundings. 
When you are finished, please watch your head again as you go out. 
Once you exit the cabin you will see ahead of you a large sign.  This is Sotterley's Middle Passage Marker.  It tells the story of the "Generous Jenny," a slave ship that landed at Sotterley in 1720 from the West Coast of Africa with its human cargo. Sotterley is one of five middle passage sites in Maryland. Sotterley is a UNESCO Slave Route Site of Memory.


Historic Sotterley

Historic Sotterley 19th century Corn Crib Building with "Land, Lives, and Labor" exhibit

Introduction

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Backstory and Context

Additional Information