Mount Harmon House, Earleville MD (Sassafras River)

 On Sunday Oct 17th, we launched the dinghy about 10:45 am and tied it up to the dock at the Mt. Harmon House 5 minutes later and were on time for the 11:00 tour of the stately home that is now a museum, overlooking the Sassafras River. The home was in the DuPont family and Mrs. Dupont didn't skimp on costs to restore to her ancestoral home to how it would have appeared in the mid 1700's when it was the site of a 300 acre tobacco plantation. We received a private tour of the home that had a period grandfather clock from Newbury Port, MA, the kitchen (situated in a separate building from the house), the enslaved quarters, and a shed for smoking of meats, and were left on our own to explore the woods, the tobacco barn where the newly harvested tobacco was drying, the prize house where they'd pack the tobacco into hogshead barrels for shipping to England, and vistas of the river from high above. It was a hidden gem to have stumbled upon the Mt. Harmon House - our cruising guide book served us well, and I shared photos from our visit with my french friend Tiphaine Lastennet who happens to be assembling a display about tobacco growing for her museum in France and she was most appreciative. It turns out that this location on the Sassafras River was one of the busiest ports on the Chesapeake for shipping of goods (tobacco) to England.  The rest of the day we spent relaxing on Juno and Harry successfully fixed an essential electronic device for exploring the shallow Cheseapeake - our depth sounder that quit working yesterday as we were anchoring. With a newly working depth sounder, we felt confident exploring up the Sassafras River to the east of the drawbridge at Fredericktown where we dropped our anchor Monday Oct 18 and took a few hours to explore even further up river by dinghy. We ate a picnic lunch in a very secluded spot as a heron called out. In general, the north side of the Sassafras River was undeveloped while several large homes and docks dotted the southern shoreline.

Mount Harmon House

A bit of the tobacco history of Maryland

Inside a tobacco barn

A beautifully oyster buy boat, the Nellie Crockett

Juno on anchor on the Sassafras River

Sunset on the Sassafras River

 

Sarah take Juno through the bascule bridge. Notice that the bridge does not go completely vertical so the boat needs to stay to the right side of the channel.