Local Industry - Tobacco Farmer

My second goal was for Zac to learn more about tobacco farming. So our other field trip destination on Saturday was Historic Sotterley, also known as Sotterley Plantation. Tobacco was THE crop when I was growing up in Southern Maryland. In fact, when we visited my grandmother (who is 105) and she was talking with me and Zac about her life, she said that at one point they had a small farm. I asked her, what did you grow on the farm? She looked very surprised and said, tobacco.

I reminded Zac yesterday about how surprised she had been. To her mind, of course it was tobacco. No one grew anything else.

It's so difficult to find any tobacco being grown today that it's hard for Zac -- or any school child -- to understand just how prevelant it was, and to picture field after field after field. Calvert County's flag even has a tobacco leaf on it!

When I was a child I knew it was back-to-school time when they started harvesting the tobacco. We could watch from the windows of the school bus.

Sotterley, built beginning in 1703 and on the shores of the Patuxent River, was largely a tobacco plantation, and I was hoping it might be one of the few places left in Southern Maryland that still grew it. And they did have a small tobacco field for demonstration purposes!

We made the unfortunate decision to take the Manor Tour (which I do not recommend) and so we were too exhausted after that to tour the grounds. I'd like to go back someday and see all the things we missed.

Pros: Interesting historical site. Reasonable cost. Excellent assortment of colonial toys in gift shop. Tobacco still grown.

Cons: Cash is not accepted. Limited hours. Manor tour not recommended. Outdated signage. Language regarding slavery could be improved.

I have a few ideas of other things we can do as a follow up to this. There's a restored tobacco barn that we can walk to, so we will definitely do that. We can visit Grammy again, and Zac can ask her some more specific questions about growing tobacco. We can watch this video and then drive by this field, which is right along the highway and on the way to the library.

And we can read Molly Bannaky -- tobacco plays a big part in her story -- and learn more about Benjamin Banneker!

Molly Bannaky
by Alice McGill

Here are the other books in my Benjamin Banneker collection. I'm fascinated by his life, and even included him in my Famous Inventors Ruzuku course!

Ticktock Banneker's Clock by Shana Keller

What Are You Figuring Now? A Story about Benjamin Banneker by Jeri Ferris
chapters 4 & 5  

Dear Benjamin Banneker by Andrea Davis Pinkney

Banneker was a contemporary of the Founding Fathers, corresponded with Thomas Jefferson, and assisted with the initial survey of Washington, D.C.

Benjamin Banneker:
The black tobacco farmer who the presidents couldn't ignore
whitehousehistory.org

We could even visit the Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum which is in Baltimore County!

Although I went there only for tobacco, learning about Sotterley transitions us really nicely into the Revolutionary War. George Plater III, who was both born and buried there, represented St. Mary's County as a member of the Annapolis Convention (1774-1776), attended the 2nd Continental Congress as a delegate for Maryland (1778-1780), voted to ratify the United States Constitution (1788), and was the state's sixth governor (1791-1792). Sotterley's History will be relevant when we get to the War of 1812 as well!

UPDATE: When we visited Haberdeventure in Port Tobacco MD, one of the buildings on the site was a tobacco barn. We've been able to see plenty of tobacco barns, but this is the only one I've been able to take Zac into. It's lovely to go inside, because you can actually sit there with the breeze coming through the openings in the walls -- and even the doors -- and feel and understand that it was perfectly designed for ventilation and drying.

UPDATE: At a craft day, Zac silkscreened this lovely design of a tobacco barn onto a canvas for me. I love it! It will forever remind me of home.

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