Curator’s Corner: The Mystery Man
On the walls of the Dining Room of the Manor House, visitors can view portraits of members of the Plater and Satterlee families; faces that help tell Sotterley’s story. But one portrait stands out among the rest. Perched above the 18th‑century sideboard is a painting of a man in uniform, gazing out across the room with a quiet authority. His presence immediately raises a question that countless visitors have asked: Who is he?
Genuine portrait of John Paul Jones painted by George Bagby Matthews around 1890
He wasn’t a Plater, a Satterlee, or a Briscoe. In fact, no known family connection ties him to Sotterley at all. According to long‑standing legend, Herbert Satterlee purchased the painting in the early 20th century, convinced that it depicted Revolutionary War hero John Paul Jones—often called the Father of the U.S. Navy (a title he shares with John Barry and John Adams). Jones died in 1792 in Paris, and Herbert, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and was active in the Navy League, played a key role in having Jones’s remains exhumed and reinterred at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1913. It’s easy to imagine why Herbert might have wanted a portrait of such a figure hanging in his home.
Yet the mystery only deepens.
The portrait in the Dining Room has intrigued visitors, staff, and historians for generations. Despite decades of research—and more than a few hopeful theories—only one fact has been firmly established: the man in the painting is not John Paul Jones. Even experts from the Department of the Navy have examined the portrait, comparing it to known likenesses and uniforms of the era, but they too have been unable to identify the enigmatic figure.
And so, the mystery endures.
Though his name may be lost to history, the unknown officer continues to hold his post in the Manor House, watching over the Dining Room just as he has for more than a century. His portrait remains a reminder that even in a place as well‑documented as Historic Sotterley, there are still stories waiting to be uncovered—and questions that may never be fully answered.