In some counties in Maryland you can find what 17th century life must have been like just minutes from the most traveled roads. St. Mary's County is one of these remote areas. Different attractions draw people here each year, yet it stays primarily historic and pristine. You may enjoy learning from the Naval Air Test and Evaluation Museum at Patuxent Naval Air Base or about the Civil War from the Old Jail Museum at Point Lookout State Park with its marvelous camping area and beaches or about crafts at Cecil's Mill and Christmas County Store.

Historic St. Mary's City was the first proprietary colony in America and the first capital of Maryland. It remains much as it was with an old style tavern, called Farthings' Kitchen. Its long tables with benches and its bedroom with rope beds were typical in colonial times. Split rail fences and open fields show the countryside around the city, fairly much as it was all those centuries ago. Graves and lead coffins of the original Calverts were found there recently. Most of the forensic evidence, archaeologists hoped to find inside, however, was destroyed when the coffins were opened to the air.

St. Mary's City is actually a small town with St. Mary's College, a post office, Trinity Episcopal Church and a cluster of museum buildings there. It is the only early English settlement that is relatively undisturbed. Some of the oldest buildings are favorites of archaeologists. Tolle-Tabbs (1750) and Van Sweringen (1600s) are practically reconstructed. St. John's (1638) and the Leonard Calvert House (1635), have the original foundations exposed. Stop at the Visitors Center of Historic St. Mary's City adjacent to the campus. For information on current digs and displays call 800-327-1634.
 

Sotterley Plantation

Sotterley Plantation was named for Sotterley Hall, the family seat of the Satterlees, circa 1066 in Suffolk, England. They were expelled in 1471 from Sotterley Hall for supporting the House of Lancaster in the Wars of the Roses. A family with the name of Playter took the house. Satterlee descendants bought Maryland's Sotterley centuries later after it had been owned and lost by descendants of the same Playters. The building has an ancient fairy tale look with roofs steeply declining to a sharp curving. In unique Tidewater Architecture, four chimneys divide it into cottage-like proportions.

James Bowles purchased a portion of Resurrection Manor in 1710 and built the center of the house where the present sitting room and stairway hall exist. The framing he used was crude but he reinforced it, and a portion of the sturdy cedar post construction is visible today inside the west wall. Bowles had plans for further remodeling. They were carried out when his widow married George Plater in 1729. Her husband served Maryland as collector of customs, member of governor's council and Provincial Secretary.

The estate remained in the Plater family for nearly a century and through four generations of George Platers. George Plater III expanded the house to its present size. As naval officer of the Patuxent, member of the Maryland House of Delegates, member of the Continental Congress, President of the Maryland Senate and Sixth Governor of Maryland, he was Sotterley's most distinguished resident. He was possibly buried on the estate's grounds. One of his daughters married Francis Scott Key's uncle in the garden on the Fourth of July. Her scrawled signature, "Eliz Key," is on a pane of glass in the drawing room window.

A story told by a slave, Harriet Brown, concerns a woodcarver named Richard Boulton. Boulton, an indentured servant, employed himself by drawing a model of the proposed staircase. When his master saw the fine ingenuity of the drawing of the Chinese Chippendale stair, he said that anyone who could do such work should be a free man.

George Plater, the builder's grandson, lost Sotterley in a game of chance to Colonel Sommerville. His sale in 1822 brought the mansion into the hands of Thomas Barber and step daughter Emeline Dallam who marred Dr. Walter Brisco in 1826, beginning another century of ownership by one family.

Finally came the Satterlees. In 1910, Herbert Satterlee, a New York lawyer, bought Sotterley as a retreat from Washington where he was serving as Under Secretary of the Navy. He studied its history, restored it to its 18th century appearance and underpinned the structure. Between 1910 and 1940, he, his wife and two daughters lived without central heat and electricity, used the 18th century garden privy and carried candles in order to preserve its authenticity.

The house is open to the public June 1 to Sept 30. Phone 301-373 2280.
 

Hale House

Hale House, a new bed and breakfast in St. Mary's County is near Point Look Out in Scotland. The spacious house, which looks out on a panoramic waterview, was built on the old Hall Plantation, noted in Regina Hammett's History of St. Mary's County. Steamboats docked at this location at one time. The Hales have owned all of the property since 1957 and built the present house with its decks near the Bay, where guests may dock.and enjoy the sunset from the balcony overlooking the living room. This open room contains a beautiful Oriental screen with soaring herons. A family room to the right of the foyer and living room is cozy for guests. Three guest rooms nearby have private baths. The first room has a large double bed and is very spacious with a mini kitchen, while the second room has two double beds for hunters or families. The third room is a suite with an adjacent alcove, containing a single bed and bath. Each room contains a television and one has a VCR. A luxurious pool and golf tees are available.

Innkeeper: Renie Hale. Three with baths and TV. Swimming, golf putting. Near Point Lookout State Park, St. Mary's City
 

Bard's Field B&B

Bard's Field is owned and operated by James and Audrey Pratt. This beautiful, modest eighteenth century manor house is located on Trinity Manor in Ridge, Maryland. Bard's Field exemplifies "Tidewater Architecture" by its floor plan and exterior appearance. The Pratts welcome guests to their restored 1798 colonial manor home furnished with beautiful antiques and home-made quilts. Come step back in time and enjoy comfortable lodging with the atmosphere and warmth of a family home, located on the lovely Rawley Bay overlooking the Potomac River.

The porch provides a serene place to relax with a book or just sit and enjoy the splendid flower gardens. The garden benches are excellent places for bird watching, especially for observing the osprey and great blue heron.

Upstairs, two bedrooms are furnished with queen-size beds and share the sitting room and bath. A country breakfast is served in the dining room to start your day. This peaceful historic home is located close to historic attractions in St. Mary's County between Historic St. Mary's City and Point Lookout State Park and also those in Calvert County.

INNKEEPERS James and Audrey Pratt. Please, no pets or children. Checks or cash. Bard's Field ADDRESS 15671 Pratt Road, Ridge, Md. 20680. PHONE (301)872-5989 email: ajpratt@verizon.com
 

Mulberry Fields

A rare example of Tidewater Virginian architecture is Mulberry Fields in the Village of Valley Lee near Leonardtown. For more than 200 years the stately house has hosted friends and strangers with warm hospitality. It was owned by the Loker family for many years. Always more of a working plantation than a showplace, the two-storey brick dwelling is thought to have been built before 1767, the date found inscribed in a hall closet. It is uncertain whether the house was built by John Attaway Clarke who in a will of 1779 left the Mulberry Fields property to his wife on condition that she not break up the Avenue and little Pasture about the house he lived in. It also provided that the property should pass to William Somerville, on the remarriage or death of Mrs. Clarke. The plantation reached the peak of its prosperity during William Somerville's ownership. By 1806, Somerville increased his slave force from 46 to 180 and raised corn, wheat, flax and cotton in the surrounding fields.

William's son, William Clarke Somerville, next inherited the house at the age of 16. A romantic, cosmopolitan figure, he served as an Army major in the War of 1812 and subsequently toured Europe. On his return, he renamed Mulberry Fields "Montalbino." When he sold Mulberry Fields, he purchased Stratford Hall, across the Potomac, the birthplace of Robert E. Lee. Later he drowned and was buried on Lafayette's estate.

"Montalbino" passed through several hands between 1822 and 1832, when it reverted to its original name. Thomas Loker acquired the plantation in 1832 for the sum of $4000. He is thought to have made the only major additon to the house, the Doric two-story portico. Four loblolly pines were floated upstream to the Naval Gun Factory in Washington to be turned on the gun lathe and shaped.

The house is a five-bay Georgian brick building. Both porches and kitchen wing are later additions. A dairy; meat house, kitchen and workhouse were built later than the main house and are placed north of it, forming a rectangular court. The home remained in the Loker family until 1916 when it was sold to Col. and Mrs. William Garland Fay. In 1957, Mulberry Fields was purchased by a niece of the Fay's, Mrs. Mary Jansson and her husband Holgar Jansson. In the 1980s, it was still worked as a plantation of about 600 acres.