Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum [MD]

Description

The Benjamin Banneker Historical Park and Museum is the largest original
African American historical site in the United States. Established in 1998, it
includes Banneker’s original farmstead and a nature preserve that is located in Oella, Maryland. A multitude of adventures awaits you while exploring this 142-acre park and museum.

This site features: exhibits, excavated artifacts, multi-media presentations, a colonial cabin, gardens, and nature trails. Mary Bannaky may even welcome you to her homestead as she goes about her daily tasks.

Educational programs are available for students to learn about: Benjamin
Banneker’s extraordinary life and accomplishments, African American history in
Maryland, settlement and development of the Patapsco River Valley, life in the 18th century, and nature and environmental conservation.

Teachers are welcome to reserve a tour and/or rental space for professional development and teacher workshops. The site also provide digital data about our
programming.

Association for the Preservation of Historic Natchitoches, Melrose Plantation, and Kate Chopin House [LA]

Description

The Association for Preservation of Historic Natchitoches seeks to preserve areas of historic value in the oldest settlement in the Louisiana Purchase Territory. The Association maintains the Melrose Plantation and the Kate Chopin House. The Melrose story begins with Marie Therese Coincoin, a slave born in 1742; she was eventually she sold to a Frenchmen, Claude Thomas Pierre Metoyer. In time, Metoyer freed Marie Therese and 10 Franco-African children. Evidence points to Metoyer as the father of these children. Marie Therese and son Louis Metoyer received large grants of land including the present Melrose Plantation. This Creole-style home celebrates its most famous resident, Kate Chopin, and its original inhabitant, Alexis Cloutier. Built by slave labor between 1805 and 1809, the structure exemplifies the early 19th-century homes of the area.

The association offers occasional recreational and educational events; the plantation offers tours; the house offers exhibits and tours.

Belle Grove Plantation [VA]

Description

Belle Grove is an 18th-century grain and livestock farm, which, in its prime (circa 1815), encompassed about 7,500 acres of land. The unique limestone house was completed in 1797 for Major Isaac Hite and his wife Nelly, sister of future President James Madison. The house has remained virtually unchanged through the years, offering visitors an experience of the life and times of the people who lived there in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. During the Civil War, Belle Grove was at the center of the decisive Battle of Belle Grove or Cedar Creek. Today, the plantation includes the main house and gardens, original outbuildings, a classic 1918 barn, an overseer's house, the slave cemetery, a heritage apple orchard, fields and meadows, and scenic mountain views.

The site offers tours, educational programs, and occasional recreational and educational events (including living history events).

Mount Vernon - George Washington's Estate and Gardens [VA]

Description

Mount Vernon was the beloved home of George and Martha Washington from the time of their marriage in 1759 until General Washington's death in 1799. He worked tirelessly to expand his plantation from 2,000 acres to 8,000 and the mansion house from six rooms to 21. Visitors are invited to tour the Mansion house and more than a dozen outbuildings including the slave quarters, kitchen, stables, and greenhouse. They can stroll four different gardens, hike the Forest Trail, and explore the "George Washington: Pioneer Farmer" site, a four-acre working farm that includes a recreation of Washington's 16-sided treading barn. George and Martha Washington rest in peace in the tomb where wreathlaying ceremonies are held daily, and the Slave Memorial and Burial Ground is nearby.

The site offers multimedia presentations, exhibits, tours, demonstrations, educational programs, river cruises, research library access, and recreational and educational events (including living history events).

First Territorial Capitol State Historic Site

Description

This building was the capitol for only four days in 1855, but many believe that the actions of the legislature that met here led directly to the Civil War. Governor Andrew Reeder picked this location, away from the proslavery influence of Missouri, where the legislature would choose a permanent seat of government, create a constitution, and decide if Kansas would be a free or slave state. Instead the legislature kicked out the antislavery members and passed a bill to move the government to Shawnee Mission near the Missouri border. Inside this native stone building visitors will learn the stories of the antislavery and proslavery people of territorial Kansas, set alongside the beauty of the Kaw River Nature Trail.

The site offers exhibits, tours, and educational and recreational events.

Hempsted Houses [CT]

Description

The 1678 Joshua Hempsted House is one of New England's oldest and best documented dwellings. Joshua Hempsted lived here his whole life, filling many roles, including farmer, judge, gravestone carver, shipwright, and father of nine children left motherless by his wife's death in 1716. The Hempsted House survived the 1781 burning of New London by the British, commanded by traitor Benedict Arnold. Later, it may have been a safe house on the secret Underground Railroad which aided fugitive slaves seeking freedom. Adjacent to the Joshua Hempsted House is a rare stone dwelling built in 1759 by his grandson Nathaniel. Both houses' furnishings include original Hempsted family objects.

The houses offer exhibits and tours.

Old Slave Mart Museum [SC]

Description

The Old Slave Mart, located on one of Charleston's few remaining cobblestone streets, is the only known extant building used as a slave auction gallery in South Carolina. Once part of a complex of buildings, the Slave Mart building is the only structure to remain. When it was first constructed in 1859, it has gone through numerous renovations and today serves as a museum, with a permanent exhibition divided into two main areas. In the orientation area, visitors receive an introduction to the domestic slave trade within the greater historical context of slavery in the United States as well an overview of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. In the main exhibit area visitors will also get a closer look at the daily process of slave sales at Ryan's Mart from the perspectives of a number of its historically documented buyers, traders, and enslaved African Americans. This section explains this antebellum slave market's role within Charleston's larger, but concentrated, slave-trading district.

The museum offers exhibits.

Montgomery County Historical Society and Museums [MD]

Description

The Society maintains three historical properties, including the Beall-Dawson House, the Stonestreet Museum of 19th-century Medicine, and the Waters House History Center. Visitors can learn about the county's beginnings at the historic 1815 Beall-Dawson House, an elegant federal style townhome that features period rooms and changing exhibits. The museum tour highlights the culture and daily life of both the upper-class Beall family as well as the enslaved African Americans who labored in the house and on the adjacent property. The Stonestreet Museum offers an insider's look into the developments in medical science that occurred during the career of Dr. Edward E. Stonestreet. Built in 1852, this unique one-room Gothic Revival doctor's office features medical artifacts and implements that demonstrate the fascinating changes that occurred in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Waters House History Center is housed in oldest house in Germantown—built in three parts, the oldest dates to the mid-1790s. It offers exhibits related to local history.

The Society offers educational programs and lectures; the Beall-Dawson House offers exhibits, tours, and occasional educational and recreation events and programs; the Stonestreet Museum offers exhibits and tours; the Center offers exhibits and occasional recreational and educational programs.

The Capitol Complex Extension Branch of the Southeastern Regional Black Archives at Union Bank[FL]

Description

Completed in 1841 when Florida was still a territory, the Union Bank is the state's oldest surviving bank building. Chartered to help finance local cotton plantations, it ultimately closed because of crop failures, the Second Seminole War, and poor management. After the Civil War, it reopened as the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company for emancipated slaves and later served several other functions. In 1971, the Bank was moved from its original site, and, after restoration, it was opened as a museum in 1984. The Union Bank now serves as an extension of the Florida A&M University Black Archives, Research Center, and Museum and is open to the public and school groups only on weekdays. Artifacts and documents reflecting black history and culture are on display, and public programs are provided by Black Archives staff.

The bank offers exhibits.

Harriet Tubman Home [NY]

Description

The Harriet Tubman Home preserves the legacy of "the Moses of Her People" in the place where she lived and died in freedom. The site is located on 26 acres of land in Auburn, New York, and is owned and operated by the AME Zion Church. It includes four buildings, two of which were used by Harriet Tubman. Some articles of furniture, and a portrait that belonged to Harriet Tubman are now on display in the Home.

The site offers tours and occasional recreational and educational events.