Would the new owner of Richland Farm let a Black woman continue to visit to pay tribute to her enslaved ancestors?
Now, on an afternoon in early May, Stephanie Gilbert pulled up to a liquor store on a busy stretch of highway in Ellicott City, Md. Customers streamed out the door of Pine Orchard Liquors carrying cartons, bottles clinking.
In a handful of paragraphs, Gilbert had laid out the three centuries of remarkable history it had taken her a decade to unravel: the five generations of her enslaved ancestors who had labored at Richland Farm and a neighboring plantation in Clarksville for one of Maryland’s most prominent families, Oliver Gilbert’s escape in 1848 via, his successes as a free man and his return to Maryland in 1908, when he boldly presented himself to his enslaver’s grandson, Edwin Warfield, the state’s 45th...
There, as he served Watkins in his dining room, the boy bore witness as the plantation’s enslaved people escaped or were The memorabilia dealer had also mailed Gilbert a large, framed photograph of Oliver as a free man — broad-shouldered and square-jawed with a generous was arrested by two federal marshals. He recalled running with a crowd to the courthouse to free Minkins, who was whisked away on the Underground Railroad.On April 16, 1851, Oliver wrote, he arrived during an early morning snowfall in New Hampshire bearing a note of introduction from Garrison. He stayed in the small town of Lee with the family of abolitionist Moses A. Cartland for two years, working as a cook in their kitchen.
life. It felt to her that he was still owned by others, what remained of his life theirs to do with as they wished.In 1884, Gilbert’s great-great-grandfather purchased an expensive suit, donned a hat and a silk umbrella, and returned to Walnut Grove in a horse-drawn carriage driven by a White coachman. He had something to prove.
A Baltimore Sun reporter wrote a story about the encounter, with a racist headline: “Back to Massa Edwin.” They’d been invited to lunch after Gilbert tripped upon yet another Sun article. The story detailed the lavish efforts by Melanie Dorsey and her husband, Dan Standish, to restore the 300-year-old property to its former glory.Now the couple, both attorneys, greeted their guests and ushered them inside. Dorsey was nervous, she remembered in an interview, wanting to say the right thing.
The next morning, Gilbert received an email from Dorsey. She and Standish had not wanted to ruin the picnic with the news, she said, but they had decided to divorce. Even so, she assured Gilbert that as long as she was alive, she would be Richland’s owner, and Gilbert would always be welcome to visit.
Gilbert left the house at the end of the visit fuming inside. Her ancestors’ labor — not just on the plantation but as workers the family hired out, keeping their wagesGilbert said — had allowed Dorsey’s forebears to build their wealth and status. Now Richland would be “sold to the highest bidder,” Gilbert said, and she was powerless to do anything about it.
Dorsey was stunned. “I offer my deepest apologies, knowing that likely means nothing to you,” she emailed back. “I do not know how to undo the hurt, pain I have caused you and your family.” She’d freely given Gilbert the kettle that she wanted, she said. Now she offered to mail her three more items from the kitchen hearth.
“I never thought of it as owing, as owing access or something like that. I just thought of it as something you do.”Outside Pine Orchard Liquors, Gilbert made her appeal to the new owner of Richland. She did not know how much Kim, a South Korean immigrant, knew about the history of American slavery. Yet here was her one shot.
On a Saturday morning in late May, Gilbert said she received a call from Kim’s 24-year-old daughter. She said her mother had asked her to call. Their family is very private, she explained. They had bought Richland because it was secluded. They didn’t want other people around them. Unlike Melanie Dorsey, she said, her family’s history is not entwined with Gilbert’s: “This is independent, private property. It’s not open to the public. … My children, everyone says ‘no.’”
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