Bill
and Nancy Smith Family
Travels andHolidays
Colonial MarylandPlantation, August 2001
This web site will both chronicle (very briefly) our recent visit toMaryland and provide some useful background material (via hyperlinksto additional information) for better understanding of the ancestoralheritage of the Kinnick line (Bill's mother's father's line) incolonial times.
Introduction
We spent a rainy Sunday afternoon visiting Historic St. Mary's City, just up thePotomac river from the Chesapeake Bay, in St. Mary's County,Maryland. This is "A Museum of Living History and Archealogy at theSite of Maryland's First Capital." Two ships from England, the Arkand the Dove, brought the first 140 colonists to Maryland in 1634.They landed near here and built the first settlements, including thefirst state capital, on this site. This site was later abandoned assettlements moved upstream and inland. The 350th anniversary of thatfirst landing has sparked interest in this site which is now aexcellent, constantly growing, tribute to those earlycolonists.
The Spray Plantation is reconstructed inthe mode of a 1660s tobacco plantation, including "residents" whostay in character as visitors come and go, sharing thoughts,processes and activities of the times. One of Bill's ancestor's,Richard Brightwell (later to become Captain of the Horse Rangers ofPrince George's County and grandfather of William Kinnick who servedin the Revolutionary War), entered America in 1663 as an indenturedservant, about the age of the young man we met at thePlantation.
We began at the visitorscenter:
The rain discouraged too many outdoorpictures. Check the web site linked above, for moredetails.
Bill is seen here, looking at an exhibitabout an "ordinary" - an inn of the day.
We
decided that the plantation was mostimportant, so we headed down the road,
to find the Spray Plantation, in the rain.
Nancy
and I broke out our blackumbrella's and began what became a very
realistic tour of a 1660s colonial Maryland tobaccoplantation.
The path
leading off to the left, above,leads to the Master's house.
Part way back, a path leads behind the trees above, to the right,
into the woods, to the tenant's house. We'll go there,first.
Enjoy!
Bill