MD -- Piscataway Park / Natl Colonial Farm:
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- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- NCF_080817_007.JPG: The National Colonial Farm:
The National Colonial Farm offers a glimpse into the farming and social lives of Marylanders between 1760 and 1775.
The National Colonial Farm was one of the Accokeek Foundation's first endeavors. It offers a view into the life of a small, middle class farm family in Maryland.
You might see historical interpreters portraying people who lived and worked on the farm, including slaves. You can see buildings from that period. You can even see varieties of animals and plants similar to those people used 250 years ago.
- NCF_080817_010.JPG: Visitor center
- NCF_080817_036.JPG: Science and History Together
The National Colonial Farm
-- Accokeek Foundation at Piscataway Park --
Here at the National Colonial Farm, you will see a realistic portrait of everyday life in Prince George's County 250 years ago. Welcome to the National Colonial Farm, one of the Accokeek Foundation's first educational programs. Created in 1958, the National Colonial Farm originally emphasized preserving heirloom crops with ties to colonial era Maryland. This scientific focus is still important, but the Farm's mission has since expanded. Today, the Farm depicts life on a small tobacco farm in the mid-to-late 1700s. Most farmers in colonial Maryland lived on small farms like this, rather than big plantations like 8000-acre Mount Vernon. Come take a journey through history, agriculture, and ecology.
History Comes Alive:
Actor-interpreters portray ordinary life on a small family farm between 1760 and 1775. The family story presented at the National Colonial Farm is a composite. The individual's daily labor, interactions, possessions, and crops are based on the historical records of twelve local colonial families. Laurel Branch-Originally built around 1770; this house had people living in it until 1950. Small and comfortable yet easily expandable houses like this suited the lifestyle of families on small farms. The Accokeek Foundation moved it here and reassembled it using colonial methods in the 1990s.
Tobacco Barn:
This tobacco barn is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. The Accokeek Foundation moved it here from near Annapolis in 1981 and spent two years reassembling it using colonial methods. The high roof, a feature of colonial Maryland barns, provides a clue to the structure's age.
Heritage Breeds:
The National Colonial Farm is a demonstration of colonial agriculture. The Milking Devon Cows, Hog Island Sheep, Ossabaw Hogs, Dominique Chickens, and Black Spanish Turkeys are among the few remaining of their kind. They are representative of farm animals you would have seen in the 1700s. From their home to yours, what can you do? You'll see how this family lived long ago. Families have interesting stories. Ask older relatives about their childhoods. Did they grow up near here, or come from another state or another country? Do some family history research of your own.
- NCF_080817_042.JPG: Leaf, Land, and People:
Worldwide demand for tobacco encouraged European colonists to grown the crop almost exclusively. Planters sold it to Europe and bought goods in exchange.
Life in colonial Prince George's County revolved around growing tobacco. Tobacco brought opportunity for some. Planters saw promise in the country's abundant, fertile land. Tobacco cultivation is labor intensive, and planters forced enslaved Africans and African Americans to produce the cash crop.
Tobacco's growing cycle dictated work on a small farm. Year round, everyone -- free and slave, man and woman, young and old -- was involved in planting, cultivating, cutting, or curing tobacco.
Social Life: Each small farm's inhabitants had a great deal of contact with others, at least nearby. Planter men socialized while doing business. Women regularly visited their neighbors. Although their mobility was restricted, slaves ran errands for their masters. Sometimes they visited friends and family.
Tobacco and the Land: By 1775, families had subdivided the land over several generations. In most families, farms couldn't be further subdivided and remain profitable. A lack of available fertile land had driven prices too high. White farmers starting out looked elsewhere. After decades of growth, Prince George's County began to lose population.
Work on Small Farms: While large plantations may have had dozens or hundreds of slaves, small farmers typically owned one or two people. Often on small farms, masters and slaves worked side-by-side. During harvest time, especially, people worked long hours. The crop needed to be cut quickly to ensure its quality.
Crop as Cash: Growing tobacco was colonial Prince George's County's dominant industry. Its success or failure brought prosperity or ruin. Tobacco leaves served as money. Planters had to sell the tobacco they produced to Britain. They exchanged it for manufactured British goods, at least in good years. In bad years, everyone made do with less.
What caused bad years? Sometimes taxation and tobacco inspection laws cost planters their profits. At other times, low demand for tobacco reduced priced. Sometimes weather and pests damaged or destroyed crops.
- NCF_080817_518.JPG: Potomac Heritage
The National Colonial Farm
-- Accokeek Foundation at Piscataway Park --
Before you flows the great Potomac River, a 390 mile stretch of water, forests, fields and wetlands that tells the story of ten thousand years of human habitation. The river begins as a spring at the Fairfax Stone in West Virginia, evolves to a tidal river at Washington, D.C., and eventually expands to a body of water that is over ten miles wide as it empties into the Chesapeake Bay. When Captain John Smith made his fateful voyage past this site in 1608, he saw Native American villages and stockade forts scattered along the shoreline. A century-and-a-half later, George Washington looked across the waterway to see the same unblemished landscape that one views from Mount Vernon today. Millions now live and work along this corridor, building upon cultural traditions laid down over ten millennia. The story of the Potomac valley is the story of colonial estates and small farmers and waterman and urban dwellers. It is an expression of the American Experience. Vast areas of wilderness and open space remain along the river. Countless historical sites have been preserved. It is one of the prime recreational resources of the region. The Accokeek Foundation works with many other organizations to preserve the river's past, save environmental areas important to our quality of life today, and educated the public about how crucial this precious resource is to the future of our country.
- NCF_080817_541.JPG: Mount Vernon across the Potomac
- NCF_080817_549.JPG: Fishing the Potomac River
The National Colonial Farm
-- Accokeek Foundation at Piscataway Park --
In 1759, George Washington wrote that the Potomac River was "…well-stocked with various kinds of fish at all seasons of the year, and in the spring with shad, herrings, bass, carp, perch, sturgeon, etc. in great abundance." Fisherman tossed their nets into the river and pulled their catch ashore by hand or by mule. The Potomac River was once the most profitable fishing river on the East Coast until over-fishing, pollution, and sedimentation devastated the fish population. By the early twentieth century, the once plentiful sturgeon disappeared from the Potomac, and shad and herring were rare. Fortunately, catch limits, clean water laws and conservation actions are cleaning up the Potomac. Government agencies and private citizens are working to replenish the shad and herring population and to reintroduce sturgeon to the Potomac River. In time these troubled species may again be "in great abundance." (Inscription under the photo in the upper left) You might need a bigger pole…Atlantic sturgeon like this can reach up to 15 feet in length and weight up to 800 pounds. With reintroduction efforts under way, some day it may again be possible to catch a sturgeon in the Potomac.
- NCF_080817_550.JPG: Traveling on the Potomac River
The National Colonial Farm
-- Accokeek Foundation at Piscataway Park --
For more than 10,000 years, the Potomac River has been a key to prosperity for people living within its watershed---providing water, food, recreational opportunities, and a means of transportation. Native Americans in birch bark and dugout canoes were the first to travel on the Potomac River and its tributaries. In 1608, John Smith's voyage heralded the European colonization of the Potomac. As the colonies grew, larger boats and sailing vessels plied the Potomac, carrying people and supplies, and stopping at large plantations like Mount Vernon to load tobacco for the journey to the Chesapeake Bay and across the Atlantic to European markets. In time, the internal combustion engine changed transportation on the Potomac as elsewhere. But a sense of the river's maritime history returns when sailing, canoeing, or kayaking its waters today.
- Wikipedia Description: Piscataway Park
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Piscataway Park, located 20 miles southwest of downtown Washington, D.C. near Accokeek, Maryland, protects Marshall Hall and the National Colonial Farm. The park is located across the Potomac River from Mount Vernon, and its original purpose was to allow the view from Mount Vernon to be as it was in George Washington's day, by preventing development on the opposite side of the river.
Piscataway Park is home to bald eagles, as well as beavers, osprey, and other wildlife. The park contains areas of wetlands, meadows, and woodland.
The park is administered by the National Park Service and is managed by National Capital Parks-East.
National Colonial Farm:
The National Colonial Farm is a living history example of a 1770's tobacco farm. Many of the structures on the site are open to visitors, including a barn, smokehouse, out-kitchen, and the farm house. Costumed interpreters demonstrate various techniques, including candlemaking, gardening, and sewing.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
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