Preservation in Progress

Homestead

Recently this Homestead was carefully moved to its new home in the fields below the Manor House, just past the Slave Quarters. The house is emblematic of the type of dwelling typical of a working-class family following emancipation. It was originally sited to help provide security for the property from visitors coming ashore at a nearby beach on the Patuxent River. In addition, the house was near enough to the Manor House to provide easy access for the workers living there.

This is the very house that some of our Sotterley Descendants and their ancestors grew up in. Beverley Barber is one of those descendants. When asked about the move, she said, “My memories of the house are family and home. It was a place of love my parents were so nurturing to us as kids. I remember my mom making home made root beer, apple strudel, coconut and chocolate cakes, chocolate nougat Easter eggs and fried chicken and cabbage. . .The moving of the house is monumental for the fact that it shows that real families with personal memories were raised at Sotterley.”

While it is currently in a state of disrepair, we will be working to restore and preserve this piece of history so that we can continue to tell an inclusive and complete history of Sotterley. The roof has already been replaced, and many more projects will happen in the future. We look forward to watching this project evolve, and hope you'll stop by our site to experience this returning piece of history.

New Visitor Center

We are in the process of remodeling this old office house into a new Visitor Center. Moving our Visitor Center to this location makes it more central to Historic Sotterley's site and puts it in proximity of our Historic Core. This remodel will also allow us to modernize the visitor experience, and frees up the old Visitor Center to become a center for educational programming, house the "Knott House" exhibit, and become the gateway for agricultural education on the site.

Slave Quarters

Our 19th century Slave Quarters have already undergone extensive preservation, but there is still more underway as we continuously make an effort to preserve both this structure and the history and stories of the families and descendants that lived and labored here.

There will be upcoming archaeological investigation lead by Sotterley Descendants to uncover more about the lives of those that were enslaved here. Please keep an eye on our website and social media for exciting updates about this project.

Smokehouse

This is an 18th century smokehouse, one of the oldest brick smokehouses in the Tidewater region. We are in the process of starting new preservation work on this historic building and our future goal is for it to house an exhibit on food ways of Sotterley, including access to and preservation of food over three centuries of American history.

Agricultural Preservation

For centuries, agriculture served as the economic backbone of Southern Maryland, including Sotterley, with a dedication growing cash crops, including grains and tobacco, that were shipped to international markets. From the colonial period, through the modern area, until the growth an expansion of suburbanization as well as the tobacco buyout forced a shift economically in the region. Much of what was once farmland has been replaced by housing developments and shopping centers and has resulted in a diminished awareness about agricultural history.

To keep this history alive, Historic Sotterley, in addition to its Growing for Good program, plants demonstration plots of grains and tobacco as an educational and interpretive resource for our community.

Schoolhouse

In the 1830s, the Briscoe family had a boarding school at Sotterley for girls promoting education. Today, this exhibit is used to provide insight into who was allowed access to an education and who was denied education for most of the region's history. The goal is to eventually restore the schoolhouse and for the other gatehouse (across the driveway) to house a companion exhibit on African-American education in Southern Maryland.

Historic Sotterley's educational history includes links to Charlotte Hall Military Academy, St. Mary's College of Maryland, Cardinal Gibbons School, and the Phillis Wheatley School.